WOW! Over 6000 members including nearly 700 of our Silver Sneakers, Silver and Fit and Renew Active members have come back to the YMCA to exercise their mind, body and spirit. We have reopened our YMCA’s and they are welcoming, clean and fun. You can learn more about our welcome back plan here. Yes, the YMCA of Metropolitan Detroit continues to help make every day better.
We have 7 YMCAs to serve you; your membership is good for use at all 7 locations with no additional costs. We also lowered almost all of our membership rates to historical lows.
Our YMCA continues to:
Welcome back members
Since we re-opened in September 2020 through December 31, over 6,000 members have already graced our doors and we are so glad they are back. We’ve re-opened all seven of our YMCAs and are here to help our members achieve their healthy living goals.
Distribute Food
Our Y Nourish program distributed 217,000+ meals (breakfast & lunch) from January – December throughout Metropolitan Detroit at over 20 locations. Thanks to partners, members and donors. In addition, to this we distributed Fresh Food Baskets to 100 families & 40 seniors for Thanksgiving. These baskets fed nearly 600 people. Each basket provided families a week of food during the holiday, over 30 volunteers delivered the meals.
Food Partners: Atlas Wholesale Foods, Garden Fresh, Gordon Food Service, LaGrasso Bros., and Unique Food Management.
Full Site List
Operate a virtual Y
Providing online fitness classes to members. We are providing over 200 unique online classes for all ages with support from our partners: Les Mills On Demand Workouts, Silvers Sneakers, YMCA Home, and YMCA 360.
Explore Our Virtual YMCANurture youth and teens
We are providing tele-services and virtual resources to teens in the YMCA Achievers program. To date we have connected with over 500 teens providing counseling, work readiness preparation/training and other resources.
In addition, our YMCA Positive Play Initiative: YPPI, pronounced Yippee, serves as the mobile partner of the SportPort program. Our staff have provided children throughout Metropolitan Detroit opportunities to sample various sports right in their own neighborhood. Since June we have served over 5,000 children at more than 20 sites.
Our Partners: Connect Detroit, Western Michigan University, Detroit Creativity Project, Detroit Employment Solutions Corporation, and the Youth Development Resource Center.
Keep kids safe, healthy and engaged
Our Y continues to provide childcare, day camp and virtual learning support for families as well as programs for kids like SportPort and Girls on the Run. Over 11,000 children have been served in Macomb, Oakland and Wayne Counties in 2020. We also adopted 80 families for the holidays, thanks to support from Bank of America giving 200 children an amazing Christmas.
Gifts for Children 
Y Staff Packing Gifts
Partner to create virtual arts education, contests, and resources
We launched the Improv Project online, providing interactive arts education to serve an unlimited number of youth and families through our YMCA partnership with the Detroit Creativity Project. Over 316 children participated in Y Arts programs since June. Students were supported from Hamtramck High School, Hutchinson Middle School, Lincoln Park High School, and the YMCA Achievers program. This program also offered free improv instruction to youth and adults in the community, and thanks to support from The Skillman Foundation, we continued to offer improv instruction paired with literary arts offerings from InsideOut Literary Arts.
We launched two virtual artists exhibitions: Sanda Cook and Evans Tasiopoulos.
Celebrate the Creativity of our Community
In response to major societal changes resulting from COVID-19, Y Arts Detroit has completely revamped the second annual Detroit Can Film Festival (DCFF). With that in mind, the 2020 festival had a new theme, a new timeline, and a slightly new approach. Youth and adults were invited to submit 10 second films on the theme “What Really Matters Now”. If you missed it no problem watch the video here. The 2020 Grand Prize winner was Kenndall Wallace and the 2020 Audience Award and 1st runner Up winner was Aaron McCloud.
Maintain our YMCA facilities to reopen and enjoy safely
We are working continuously implementing CDC best practices to open our buildings and services in phases safely. We are improving air circulation, social distancing equipment, using CDC recommended cleaning supplies and more.
From March to September, we supported our members at home:
Temper social isolation: connecting with people.
During the time our branches were shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we made wellness calls to nearly 10,000 members including nearly 2,000 seniors.
We are supporting furloughed employees and encouraging civic engagement:
Support our furloughed employees
We maintained health insurance for eligible furloughed staff for 3 months and we monitor local and national news and share updates on unemployment and other benefits to help them navigate these challenging times.
Promote census completion and encouraged voter registration
This spring, we promoted the importance of census completion to ensure our communities get their fair share of federal resources. In October, we promoted Voter registration and participation to 75,000 YMCA members & program participants.
To our YMCA friends, thank you for helping us help others. It is an honor to serve.
We truly are committed to making every day better.