Charlie's Staff Blog | Tuesday, October 25, 2022
“Count it all joy, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (James 1:2-4)
An opening exercise we do on a regular basis in some of our meetings is to identify staff from around the organization who are doing great things at their job. It is fun to hear about our staff, and it is never the same people who are being recognized. For me, it is confirmation of what I see when I visit the centers and all of our sites from around the association; our strength is our team, and the passion and commitment all of you exhibit on a daily basis is driving our Y forward. Listening to Lia Griffith, one of the gymnastics coaches at our Morgan branch in last week’s Staying Connected call, was inspiring. Hearing her story about how she has grown up in the Y, and now is giving back to young people coming through the Y. This is a story many of you share. I do hope you can reflect on the impact you are having on others. In each of the “Why the Y” stories we get to hear, it is clear that you have all chosen to be in the Y to have an impact on your community and to make this a better place to live. The Y is a vital place, especially now, and you are playing an important role in our Y. Thank you for being part of our Y.
Early on in the pandemic, one of the themes we embraced in our work was that we needed to look at solutions in a different light. We believed the coronavirus was having a lasting impact on our world and we needed to adapt. We recognized that in order to bring change, it was going to be a process. The endpoint was probably many steps ahead, and the finish line was probably not going to be a place we could see and it probably would be constantly evolving. This process has taken a lot of courage, forcing us to take risks with new ideas. Bruce Caudill, our Vice-President of Information Technology, points to how our virtual programming has evolved. When our operations first closed down, staff immediately jumped onto their phones to deliver classes from their homes. It was a powerful testament by our team to look for any means possible to connect with our members. Within a year, Bruce, Michael Marquez, our Operations Director, and the team built a studio in Tacoma Center, which would enable us to raise the quality of our filming. Today, we have live streaming, on-demand, InStudio, and we are connected to over 130 other YMCAs, all of which enables us to provide a variety of services to our members; and this is still not the endpoint. Janele Nelson, our Association Mission Director, continues to work with an outside partner to build the mind and spirit component of our virtual Y, something that will complement the current physical component that is a big part of our platform. The team is working with a variety of other departments to test the virtual in an effort to enhance our overall program content. Child watch is adding the Y360 feature and we are excited to see its impact. No one could have envisioned back in 2020 where we are at today and, as Annie Doyle, Association Virtual Experience Director, Daniel Ly, Videographer and Photographer, and the team continue to press forward, testing the boundaries of what this platform can achieve. We will continue to advance as a Y by learning to incorporate a new way of work.
One area that was probably riskier than even the virtual has been the expansion of our outreach in the schools. For many years now, Child Care and our Center for Community Impact have been our intersection with the schools. During the pandemic, Tacoma Schools and Clover Park reached out to us to partner and expand the services we could deliver. The Expanded Learning Opportunities, or Beyond the Bell, is a partnership between the two school districts and a number of other social service agencies in the community to provide enrichment activities to students after school. These services are primarily in the elementary schools to complement the Child Care program, and the middle school focus of CCI. With resources tight, it was a big risk for us to choose this time to expand our reach into the schools, but we see ourselves as a big part of the network of services that serve the youth, and the schools have strongly reached out to us to play a vital role in helping kids through these stressful conditions. The Community Learning Center model that CCI is providing to youth in middle schools has been a proven success to raise school performance, improving attendance, and lowering behavior incidences. The schools are actively building upon that success, extending into elementary schools. It was not easy to move quickly and respond but our team of Tori Sandate, Arts Director at Morgan, and Becca and Scott Gjertson, Director of Outdoor Environmental Education, from Camp Seymour, enabled us to be part of Beyond the Bell. In its first year, the Beyond the Bell program provided services to 6,200 of the 8,000 youth in the Tacoma district. The community is extremely excited about this program and they are working to make this a permanent part of the school’s effort to serve youth.
Today we have Rhalena Seballos, Child Care ELO Program Director, to oversee the expanded learning opportunities. The schools are serious about this model, believing expanded services for students are essential to successful youth development. Being part of this model is exciting, but challenging. It is a significant shift in how we work. For many years, we have used our centers and our camps as sites for our service delivery model, but, as we have seen with CCI and Child Care, we have developed a model to meet youth where they are at, and Beyond the Bell is an extension to this. As part of her responsibilities, Stephanie Roberts, Operations Director, has been working with Rhalena to explore the addition of gymnastics into the platform of services we offer to the youth. Gymnastics has long been a signature program for our Y, and to be able to offer it to more youth will not only introduce them to a new sport but will also attract more youth to our amazing gyms at Morgan, Lakewood, and Korum.
Each month we hear from Toko Thompson, Chief Financial Officer, and her team, that growth has been slow but steady. We have also heard from Michelle Rose, Chief Human Resources Officer, that wages are increasing at a faster rate than our growth. We knew early on that we had to be innovative and explore new areas to grow our Y. We see the virtual programming and our partnerships with the schools as being critical areas of growth, representing new opportunities for our Y. Embracing these new opportunities requires commitment and courage. The results may not come right away. The schools are committed to at least covering our investment, plus a little more. As we have seen with InStudio, our members are excited to jump in and use it, but our staff will need to play a big role in nurturing the continued development of the platform. Though it is not easy to embrace change, I am thrilled with how far we have come. We are a different Y than we were back in 2020, and it is a tribute to all of you, your perseverance, commitment, and courage to continue to believe in what is possible. You are the present and the future of this Y. Thank you all!
#OneY #StayStrong #StayWithUs