YMCA forced to drop Get Active
By JEREMY APPEL on June 22, 2019.
jappel@medicinehatnews.com@MHNJeremyAppel The YMCA’s Get Active program, which promotes physical activity among kids at four schools in lower-income neighbourhoods, is ending this fall due to a lack of funding. The program operated at Elm Street, St. Louis, I.F. Cox and Southview Schools. Sharon Hayward, the CEO of YMCA Medicine Hat, told the News the grants and donations the program was dependent on have dried up recently, but she’s proud of the work the program has done in the six years of its existence. “Unfortunately, the funding that we accessed didn’t work out this year,” she explained. “It requires a significant matching contribution that we just weren’t able to fundraise through the partners who benefit from the program.” The grant provider is anonymous, Hayward added. “We knew that the funding was coming to an end,” she said. “We worked really hard on several different applications. None of them were successful at the end of the day.” The program had YMCA staff work with students at the participating schools “typically during lunch hours,” but also after school and, in some cases, during class hours. “We’ve worked really hard over the last couple of years to see if there’s a way to partner with the participating schools, but unfortunately when it comes to funding things like this, nobody has extra funds available,” said Hayward. “The reality of the non-profit is sometimes funding comes through and sometimes it doesn’t.” The YMCA will still offer physical literacy programming for youth, but they will have to come to the centre, instead of staff coming to their schools. “We’re located blocks away from two of those schools,” Hayward said. “We have a financial assistance program, so kids can come and access memberships here, which will give them access to all of our programs.” Ultimately, she says the program has “built some really great capacity in the schools and in the teaching staff on how to do the physical literacy programming themselves,” a source of pride for the YMCA. This isn’t necessarily the permanent end of the in-school program, she said. “We’ve committed that if the funding comes back, or if somebody comes forward from the community and is able to fund it, then we’d be happy to look at that,” said Hayward. “As a non-profit, charitable organization, we can’t operate at a financial loss.” 15-14
