Welcome to the
The Michiana Family YMCA strengthens the foundations of our community through well-being and fitness, camps, family time, swim, sports and play, and other activities for people of all ages, incomes and abilities. We’re more than just a place to work out. At the Y, we help build a healthy spirit, mind and body for all with the core values of caring, honesty, respect and responsibility at the heart of everything we do.
With a commitment to nurturing youth development, promoting healthy living, and fostering a sense of social responsibility, the Y ensures that every individual has access to the essentials needed to learn, grow and thrive.
INSPIRED TO LEARN, READY TO EARN
21 December 2011
In today’s South Bend Tribune, the editorial board writes about the high cost of dropping out of school. Typically, these articles focus on the price the dropout pays in lost opportunity and wages over a life time. But this column gives the price we all pay when our kids don’t finish high school.
Want to reduce the federal deficit? Help teens stay in school.
Want to reduce crime in your neighborhood? Help kids stay in school.
At the Y, we are committed to breaking the cycle of low expectations through programs that focus on innovation and entrepreneurship. We are working with teens to help them to be engaged, and independent; inspired to learn and prepared to earn.That is why we have established the YMCA INNOVATION DELTA in a neighborhood with a high dropout rate. We have committed ourselves and our resources to the students enrolled in our program and they, along with their families, have committed to staying in school.
John Morgan, Director of Social Responsibility for the YMCA OF MICHIANA, INC., told the South Bend Tribune he is inspired by the new energy and direction his staff has put into programming for teens, including robotics team that partners YMCA URBAN YOUTH SERVICES’ students and staff and the daily after-school programs of the Y.I.D., located at 3300 W. Sample St.
Students at the Y.I.D. engage in storytelling, music, poetry and challenge their perceptions of the world. Other students are making paper planes, which will eventually help them to understand how to fly small planes with motors and, two to three years from now, build working airplane from a kit.
The programming for each program is available through referral and recruitment. There is no fee for participation, but the students and their families mutually make a commitment to be involved.
“To say the program is free is a misstatement,” says Morgan. “The price is paid forward when students graduate in four years, ready to enter college, the job market or military service.”
The program is fully-funded through partnerships with corporations, such as J.C. Penney, grants and donations from those in the community who want to make a positive impact in their own neighborhoods.
For more information on YMCA URBAN YOUTH SERVICES or YMCA INNOVATION DELTA, or to learn how your involvement with the Y can reduce the federal deficit and crime rates in your neighborhood, contact John Morgan at 574 387 5723.
As Morgan says, "when we connect the energy and ingenuity of our kids to the expertise and entrepreneurialism of adult mentors, we are strengthening the foundations of this community."
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