YMCA Metro Atlanta

Healthy living and well-being: the ymca of metro Atlanta began in 1858 with a vision to creating an organization that would welcome individuals as they came to Atlanta and provide a safe place for growth, community, and faith. Over the years, the y has grown to meet the city's needs, today serving hundreds of thousands of individuals through numerous membership branches and program sites across greater Atlanta. Serving the Atlanta Metropolitan region for more than 160 years, the y has been an essential community organization, offering health and wellbeing opportunities for children, teens, adults, and seniors to learn, grow, serve, and thrive. By providing high-quality programs that historically engage 250,000 children, families, and communities through every stage of development, the y strengthens individuals and families through education, wellness, and youth development, especially in our city's most under-resourced communities. The ymca of metro Atlanta continues to leverage partnerships to deliver and expand existing hunger relief efforts to support more than 8,000 families weekly, with many people served not having any previous affiliation with the y. In addition to leveraging facilities for drive-through meal pick-up programs, the y took food out to the community-to mobile home parks, low-income apartment complexes, senior high rises, and extended stay hotels throughout metro Atlanta. Y facilities, program sites, and camp locations served as food distribution and packing centers, and depots for mobile meals. In total, we provided nearly 488,400 much-needed meals and snacks in 2022. The positive community impact of the ymca of metro Atlanta's programs is dependent upon our ability to engage those with the greatest needs. The why it matters annual campaign allows us to meet this goal by providing financial assistance to ensure children, adults, and families-regardless of background, zip code, or ability to pay-have access to y facilities and programs. For program enrollment, we work with members, community leaders, and partners to deliver our programs. Scholarship opportunities are regularly shared on community message boards and gatherings to broaden our reach and to ensure those less familiar with our programs learn about opportunities to engage at little or no cost. Financial assistance is awarded on a sliding scale based on income, number of dependents, and other factors. All y facilities allocate support in this manner, as overseen by branch executive leadership. Additionally, we engage under-resourced communities through water-safety initiatives and hunger relief programs.

Afterschool & day camp: all out of school activities have an intentional focus of fostering social-emotional development. Children and youth can try new activities and explore ideas in a safe environment, set and manage goals, and build upon their developing passions. For example, on the ropes course, students work together as a team to challenge and support each other to complete course elements. Through group activities, youth build self-awareness, improve communications, and learn critical relationship skills. Counselors guide teens through self-reflective conversations, ask introspective questions and encourage them to think about their strengths and areas for growth without judgment. As a result, children and teens in y out of school programs gain the knowledge and skills to develop healthy identities, manage emotions, experience and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions. The y has provided high-quality afterschool programs since the late 1970s. These programs began as a safe place for children to go during the critical hours between when the school day ends and when the typical workday ends. Currently at more than 50 schools across 8 school systems, the ymca of metro Atlanta works closely with school personnel and school district leadership to ensure our afterschool programs meet the unique needs of students and provide programming that is additive, not duplicative, with the school-day curriculum. In addition to homework assistance, we provided hands-on steam learning, healthy snacks, and opportunities to participate in physical activities to over 1,600 students in 2022. At 18 summer day camp sites and two residents camps across the greater Atlanta area, the y reached over 5,300 youth in 2022, engaging them in fun activities that develop values, leadership skills, and life skills, while creating lasting friendships and memories. Focusing on social-emotional development, ymca of metro Atlanta day camp also provides an exciting, safe community for Young people to explore the outdoors and build self-confidence while giving working parents an ease of mind that their children are in a safe and caring environment during the summer out of school months. Fees are offered on a below cost basis to parents that are unable to afford full camp costs. Most camp counselors are former ymca campers who often decline alternative higher-paying jobs to become role models for younger campers thereby positively impacting a child's life in a similar manner as they were impacted during their camp participation years. In 2022, 44% of participants in both programs received financial assistance.

School readiness & youth development: the y is one of the largest providers of early learning in Atlanta, historically serving 2,850 children, ages six weeks to four years old. Not only is the ys reach broad, but the ys programs are best-in-class. This initiative is accomplished through a flexible, four-pronged approach: head start and early head start programming; Georgia pre-kindergarten, in partnership with local school systems; traditional fee-for-service preschools, subsidized by scholarships; and early learning readiness, and mobile preschools designed to engage those not served by more traditional learning models. While the y of metro Atlanta deploys different models for different communities and according to available funding and space, they all share a common philosophy of preparing children and their families for kindergarten with proven, research-based methods. Informed by community needs resulting from the covid pandemic, the y of metro Atlanta safely expanded early learning programs in 2021. Our early learning program's goal is to prepare our youngest learners for kindergarten and long-term academic success through access to highly trained teachers, research-based curriculum and dynamic learning environments. To achieve this goal, the y of metro Atlanta has integrated the following signature early learning programs: - read right from the start, created in partnership with the Atlanta speech school, is a professional development program focused on building the language and literacy teaching skills of early learning teachers. It enriches y early learning programs with research-based training and practice-based coaching and mentoring. - recognizing that early exposure to science, technology, engineering, art, and math (steam) is critical to helping children develop skills through experiential learning, the y's early learning curriculum is infused with steam concepts and activities. Through dedicated steam experiences and a developmentally appropriate curriculum, children will learn the skills they need to become future steam leaders. - early learners also benefit from start for life, a research-based wellness program designed to address the activity levels of preschoolers during planned play time. The program develops gross motor skill movement and teaches children to make healthy choices through positive self-management skills. The ymca of metro Atlanta childcare and early learning programs engaged nearly 3,000 Young children in 2022.