Youth Development, Healthy Living and Social Responsibility: these are the focal points of our work and this past week, they were front and center in big ways!

Healthy Living

First, we kicked off the week by announcing the purchase of the Big Vanilla in Pasadena, soon to become the Y in Pasadena (effective May 23), our second Y family center in Anne Arundel County and 13th in Central Maryland. The addition of this beautiful new Y allows us to bring many Y assets to bear in Pasadena, Glen Burnie and the surrounding communities which will enable the health and well-being of thousands more families, kids and individuals! We are so proud and excited about this development and want to especially thank the Big V associates who will soon become new Y associates! They gave us a warm welcome and greeted the news with enthusiasm and professionalism. It’s a lot to absorb any change, but we were so heartened by the positive response and we can’t wait to work with you and the members you serve so well!

In case you missed, here are some of the news clips about the new Y in Pasadena:

Capital Gazette: http://www.capitalgazette.com/news/business/ph-ac-cn-bizbriefs-0426-20160425-story.html

Baltimore Business Journal: http://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/blog/real-estate/2016/04/y-in-central-maryland-purchases-big-vanilla.html

Baltimore Sun: http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/ph-ac-cn-bizbriefs-0426-20160425-story.html

Social Responsibility

Later in the day on Monday, we celebrated a great year with about 100 Y volunteers, friends and associates at our Annual Meeting, held on a beautiful, sunny evening at the Baltimore Rowing Club. As we are nearing the end of school and start of summer, we featured “Healthy Summers at the Y,” showcasing the breadth and depth of work we do to help keep about 6,000 kids and young people safe, active and engaged all summer across a large variety of Y summer camps and enrichment programs. We pointed out that over 1/4 of all these kids can only attend due to the generous support of our funders and donors who support our Send a Kid to Camp campaign now underway!

We also used the occasion to recognize several outstanding volunteers who go above and beyond to advance our cause. Many thanks to these individuals for their dedication to our mission:

Follow this link to read more about and see our wonderful volunteer award winners: https://blog.ymaryland.org/2016-y-volunteer-award-winners/

And, we honored one of our Y associates with the Brosmer Award, Chris Ader-Soto , SVP of Early Childhood Development.

Youth Development

Saturday was Healthy Kids Day at the Y and, with the support of our regional sponsors McCormick and Carroll Hospital in Carroll County, thousands of kids and families across the region participated in and celebrated healthy fun, the importance of staying active and having good nutrition!

Take a look at what was going on at Ys all across Central Maryland!