YMCA upgrades equipment, launches fundraising campaign
The Highland County YMCA has entered into a three-year lease-to-own agreement with the Greater Cincinnati YMCA to replace the cardio equipment in the fitness center.
Equipment should be on-site sometime in April. The YMCA plans to have a grand re-opening at the Y, open to the public, on April 26.
The YMCA is launching a fundraising campaign to help with funding for equipment, building repairs and upgrades.
The following is a letter from the Highland County YMCA.
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Why the Highland County YMCA will be conducting major fundraising
The Highland County YMCA
Today, Highland County is facing challenges that create a greater need than ever before for the work we do – challenges like high unemployment, childhood obesity and juvenile delinquency.
YMCAs were not intended to be fully supported by membership and program fees. We are a charity that is expected to give and receive from its community. Last year, the Y provided approximately $20,000 in scholarships to children, adults and families in need. Approximately 15 to 20 percent of our budget should be coming from donations. For our Y, that is roughly $100,000.
When the economic downturn began affecting our community several years ago, there was not as much emphasis placed on fundraising for our Y. There was a great deal of anxiety throughout the community as jobs were being lost and unemployment grew. The YMCA made cuts in hours of operations, personnel and programs
to save money. However, these cuts likely resulted in lost membership and revenue. Even as the economy has slowly improved, fundraising efforts were only modestly renewed. This is a trend that must change for the Y to be sustainable.
Our building and equipment is in need. Heating and air conditioning systems, particularly in the pool area; refinishing of gym floor; exterior of building needs cleaning and painting; upgrading of exercise equipment; and maintenance of safety and alarm systems are just some of the areas that need attention.
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We are understaffed to fully serve our community. A program director is a very important position for the Y. Directors are responsible for organizing all the adult leagues, non-aquatic classes, finding and training instructors, organizing instructional leagues for kids, overseeing summer camp and much more.
Another program area that we would like to expand is the number of hours that we provide for babysitting in the evenings. It would greatly help working parents and families if we could expand our hours of babysitting. With community fundraising support, we could afford to hire a program director and expand our babysitting hours to increase services to youth and families.
With a successful Annual Support campaign, we can begin to expand these services and programs though all of these issues cannot be addressed at once.
The Board and Staff of HCFYMCA are committed to making our facility into the great asset it was meant to be. Already, thanks to our Managed Services agreement with YMCA of Greater Cincinnati, we are able to replace all the cardio equipment in the fitness center and repay them over the next three years. If we work together to increase the Y's Annual Support campaign, we can do so much more.
Please help us with your contribution.
Highland County Family YMCA
201 Diamond Drive
Hillsboro, Ohio 45133
Phone: (937) 840-9622
Fax: (937) 840-9626
www.highlandcountyymca.org