Jefferson City Area Ymca (YMCA)

FITNESS & RECREATIONAL PROGRAMS:In the area of Health and Fitness, the Jefferson City Area YMCA offers a wide variety of programs to our community. The programs vary from individual to group formatting for people of all ages. We provide individual settings for over 3,000 children, teen, young adult, adults, and seniors. Over the past year we were able to provide many individuals with various strength, flexibility, and cardiovascular endurance programs based on the participants needs and wants. We offered over 114 land, water, and specialty aerobic classes that provided exercise for nearly 3,000 participants per month. We also provided over 190 individuals over the age of 55 with modified forms of exercise at 3 off-site locations and six on-site programs through our Silver Sneakers program. In addition, we taught over 700 children swimming lessons and provided over 5,000 children with the opportunity to participate in various forms of sports activities. Overall, we consider ourselves blessed to have had such a great year and have been given the ability to carry out our mission of building strong kids, families, and communities. Throughout the year, the YMCA donated more than $30,000 worth of YMCA memberships, programs and day passes to area non-profit entities.

BIG BROTHERS/BIG SISTERS:Big Brothers Big Sisters of Jefferson City provides children in single parent homes with a positive adult role model. We serve children that are affected by divorce or have lost a parent due to death and /or incarceration. In 2023 we made 34 new matches. A total of 162 children were actively matched throughout the year. Our average match length in 2023 was 37 months. We served 35 children with an incarcerated parent in 2023.

CHILD CARE AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT CENTER: School Age Children Program Objectives: To teach and strengthen the YMCA's four core values of respect, responsibility, honesty and caring. To model positive, healthy lifestyles and habits through positive role models. To support individual diversity and family values. To provide guidance, encouragement and leadership for area youth. To promote enriching experiences that will strengthen academic development. During the school year, the YMCA operates Y-Care. Y-Care operates out of nine area schools in the morning and after-school hours. Y-Care provides children with opportunities to explore art/humanities, science and technology, character development, reading, math, and physical fitness through a variety of hands-on activities at each site and serve as caring role models for children in our programs. During the summer, the YMCA offers summer camp for school-age area children. The program operates daily for the full eleven weeks of summer vacation, and provides a safe, fun, and educational place for children to spend their summer. School age programming has been offered in Jefferson City for 30+ years. School-Age Childcare: Y-Care distributes program evaluations in the spring. Summer camp has one program evaluation. We offer parties to schools with the most evaluations returned. We emailed the survey to parents, resulting in fewer results this year.Our parent survey scores for 2023 overall (1 being the best, and 5 being the worst). 2023-2024 Ycare:1.56 (82 surveys completed)2023 Summer Camp: 1.89 (52 surveys completed) Our parent survey scores for 2023 overall satisfaction (with 1 being the best, 5 being the worst). Child Development Center: 1.34 (29 surveys completed) Child Development Center: The YMCA Child Development Center is a child care facility that cares for and educates children between the ages of six weeks to five years. The center is Missouri licensed and provides a quality child care setting for children while their parents are at work or school. The center is licensed by the state for 132 children, serving children of various ages and abilities. The objectives of the Child Development Center are to identify and assist all children in the four developmental areas: 1) Social: to help children feel comfortable, trust their environment, form bonds with other adults and children. 2) Emotional: to help children experience pride and self-confidence, develop independence and self-control, and have a positive attitude. 3) Cognitive: to help children become confident learners by giving them opportunities to try out their own ideas and experience success, and by helping them acquire learning skills such as the ability to solve problems, ask questions, and use words to describe their ideas, observations, and feelings. 4) Physical: to help children increase their large and small muscle skills and develop strength and control in these areas. Through the efforts of our staff to care for and educate the children in the center, our goal is to set a foundation for the children to be successful in their future learning at school. The school-age childcare program and the full day childcare program allow parents the opportunity to work while the YMCA provides childcare services for their children. If not for subsidized childcare through the YMCA, parents would stay at home and be dependent on the federal assistance program. One of the populations our programs serve most effectively are single parent families with multiple children. We have many families with 2, 3, even 4 children in our care. The vast majority of these are single mothers who are either working full-time or attending college in an effort to improve their financial situations. Outreach funds make it possible for these families to receive affordable care for children ages 6 weeks through 12 years. No other organization in town serves as many children, or as wide an age range of children, as the YMCA. We believe this ability to help families with a wide range of childcare needs makes us unique and vital to the community. Child Development Center: The Child Development Center sends out annual evaluations to the parents of the center to get their feedback on the strengths and areas of improvement in the center. Evaluations of the children are also conducted three times per year to assess the children's advancement in the four areas of development. The full day care facility began operations in 2000.