Meadville Family YMCA

Goal: $30,000.00

Specific Need

The Meadville Family YMCA is excited to participate in the Crawford Gives again this year. We are excited to share our story in efforts to raise awareness and funding for the community work we do!

As you know, Crawford Gives is coming soon! We would like to tell you a little more about what the YMCA staff have been doing in this past year. The programs listed below are programs that the Y staff believe in, take pride in hosting and require fundraising to ensure they can be offered!

Food Program:

Hannah, Tammy and Talyn have been growing our food program in 2023 and 2024. We are now serving free dinners in Linesville on Tuesday's and food bag distribution once a month in Conneautville and Atlantic last year to adding weekend food bags for our Y preschoolers on Fridays and serving 60 hot meals to the Meadville Summer Parks children in the summer 2024. The Y's food program relies on community donations of food, monetary donations and grants from several of our local community groups. It takes a donation of $15 to fill a food bag, $100 to serve the weekly Linesville dinner, $5 to fill a weekend food bag and $200 a day to feed the Meadville Summer Parks children. Can you help fill some food bags for us this fall?

Scholarship Program:

The YMCA staff take pride in providing quality programming for our area children. The YMCA sports programs include: gymnastic lessons and a competitive team program, ninja warrior classes, dart blasters (New in 2024), softball, indoor and outdoor soccer, floor hockey, basketball, dance classes, and summer sports camps. Alivia, Talyn and Kersten love implementing the programs to ensure that the kids are learning more than the sport. The children are building confidence to try new things, problem solving skills to take risk, and what it means to be part of a team!

The Y is also the largest provider of Star 4 quality child care in Crawford County. Because of our Star 4 quality rating, parents can be assured that their child is receiving quality care and education for their child. Stacie, Mason, and Megan work to ensure the classroom teachers are providing high quality lessons every day.

For all of programs and membership, the Y provides scholarships for families and children to be able to ensure that all children can participate regardless of their ability to pay. Our scholarship fund is supported by generous donors like you! A $200 donation would allow for 6 children to participate in a session of gymnastics or ninja warrior classes. A $500 donation would allow a family to attend the afterschool program.

Mental Health Program:

In 2021, the YMCA leadership staff committed to developing a mental health program to support the children, families, and teachers in our child care program. With this commitment, the Y has a full-time mental health counselor, Deanna, who works with teachers and families to create behavior plans, help families navigate the process of getting outside services, support Y teachers with the mental health needs, and provide social and emotional programming for the school age children. The impact that Deanna has made in the lives of our Y kiddos has be tremendous. We cannot imagine where we would be without her! A donation to the Y's mental health program helps offset the staff costs of Deanna and the supplies that Deanna uses. An example of supplies are noise cancelling headphones to help children block out the extra noise during transition times, fidgets to help children while waiting their turn, and calming items to help children to calm when they need.

Meadville Summer Parks Program:

Hannah has worked with the Meadville Summer Parks as a collaborative partner for 3 years. The Parks Program has continued to grow and get stronger because of collaboration between the Y, Creating Landscapes, Fairview Fairmont Family Center and the City of Meadville. The group works together to raise $35,000 annually to host the program for free for 8 weeks of the summer. The children get the opportunity to explore the outdoors, play in the creek, be away from technology, try new things, build confidence, and make new friends! The Y is excited to be part of this program that makes a difference in so many young lives! It costs about $15 a day per child to host the summer parks program.

Thank you for reading all the way through this! I could go on to keep telling you everything the Y staff do but that would take forever! Please feel free to visit our website to see even more meadvilleymca.org. Please also consider donating again this year to the YMCA during Crawford Gives - August 24th-27th. Please visit crawfordgives.org to give online during those 4 days or cash and check donations can be taken at the YMCA from now until August 26th! (Checks are made out to Crawford Heritage Community Foundation).

A word from Tina Carter. As the CEO, my goal has been to ensure we are filling the gaps within our Crawford County Communities. It is the support from donors like you that make this commitment from the Meadville YMCA possible. We could not offer these services without our donors and supporters throughout Crawford County.

Mission

To put Christian principles into practice through programs that build a healthy spirit, mind, and body for all. We build strong kids, strong families, and strong communities.