Greeting everyone from your YMCA

This situation has been tough – and it has changed daily as we deal with many difficult questions from Members, Staff and the general public. In the short term we kept staff busy cleaning, repairing and creating virtual programming. I wanted to highlight some program features we have up and running to help you in this stressful time:

Heather Flock is producing a strong series of Fitness Classes with our local instructors for the entire community to log into. Every day she produces more and I encourage you to check it out. She posted one aimed at teens today and Sheila’s Yoga class has been a major hit.

Mary Niehues and Dael Babb have produced daily content for Sunshine Corner families featuring stories and activities. The first naptime story Mary read was a smash hit by Facebook standards.

Martha Harris is working with friends of Camp Pepin to build some great outdoor education content and photos of ‘What’s Happening in the River Corridor’ this spring, camp songs and fun activities.

Peachtree Preschool childcare and our School Age Child Care Program are up and running – Unique Miller and her team created a 50 kid capacity School Aged Child Care program in a couple hours Monday morning after the Governor’s request.

Red Wing School District has designated the YMCA for a breakfast and lunch feeding site during this crisis. Many kids and families are using this now and we really appreciate being asked to help with this.

For the first 40 years of our 150 year history the Y didn’t have a gym or a pool. We were an association of people who believed our community would be better for all if we came together and focused on being our best. At heart that is still who we are. Many of us Y old timers have rued the day when the Y became solely identified as a Fitness vendor – because that other message about caring for your neighbor and community seemed to get drowned out. In the last few weeks we’ve come to see this in a new light as these changes were forced upon us.

My request to you in this time of great unease is that you consider maintaining your Membership and not cancelling or putting it on hold. We will certainly do that if you want – just ask us. But your Membership does more than buy you classes or time on a machine – it supports an organization solely focused on improving our community. We’re making many economies as fast as we can but we have a large building and a strong core staff producing this great content.

We have a scheduled Membership bank draft coming up April 15 and I would greatly appreciate you considering sticking with us – because we will stick with you.

Mike Melstad