Offering Opportunities for All
The YMCA's annual fundraising goes where membership fees don’t. It powers critical programs and activities that keep kids safe, people healthy, and families strong. The Y needs your support to continue to make these services possible.
Strengthening Our Scope
While YMCA membership fees help people grow, it's our annual fundraising that gives us the power to make our community even stronger. When you give to the Open Doors Community Scholarship Campaign, you're positively contributing to our primary impact areas: Youth Development, Healthy Living, and Social Responsibility. You're also supporting the various programs the Y provides outside of our health and wellness activities, such as Feed-A-Child; Open Doors, which offers financial support to qualifying families); and Y on the Fly, our Y on wheels. Help us deliver on our mission to improve lives by giving to the Findlay Family YMCA.
FAQs:
Yes! Your gift to the Findlay Family YMCA, a 501c3 nonprofit, is tax deductible.
The annual campaign - this year named the Open Doors Community Scholarship Campaign - helps provide year-round support for programming such as public events, youth-focused parties, Y exercise classes, and community charitable efforts such as Feed-A-Child. This campaign fuels our daily, regular operations. The Stronger Together Capital Campaign is a separate fundraising effort that pertains to construction of the new Early Learning Center, East Branch renovations, and a Downtown Branch rebuild. Whereas the annual campaign is perennial, the capital campaign is a temporary endeavor that's targeted toward funding much-needed facility upgrades and replacements for our aging buildings.
Yes, you can designate which area(s) you want your dollars to support. When you give, indicate your preference and we'll make sure your donation benefits that area.
Ripple Effect: How One Y Family’s Learn-to-Swim Legacy Continues
It’s hard to say how many lives have been saved and moments of joy generated because of swim lessons, cannonballs, competition, and serene floating in Findlay Family YMCA’s pools. What is certain is that the late Peg Logsdon was present for many of those experiences, helping over the years to teach generations of this town’s young residents to swim and love the water.
According to daughter Mary Beth Hammond, her mother taught learn-to-swim lessons through the Y for more than 30 years, bringing her children along with her and cultivating a love for Y swimming and programming that persists to this day.
That love was instilled in many others outside of their family, too, including Y Frogs Swim Team coach Jeff Wobser, whom Logsdon taught to swim. Logsdon’s friendly and adept aquatic teaching talents left such a positive impression on Wobser that he went on to swim competitively and now inspires kids to make their own waves at meets.
“There is no place like this place,” said Hammond, who helped her mother teach lessons, including swimming skills and therapeutic methods for Blanchard Valley School students. The bliss and freedom of movement that water brought to those students, some of whom had mobility issues, remain vivid memories for Hammond.
As the years went on, Hammond also participated in synchronized swimming, dreamed of competing in the Olympics, brought her friends to teach swim lessons alongside her and her mother, and furthered the family swimming tradition by bringing her own children to the Y to swim, learn, and grow; her oldest daughter was one of the first children to be enrolled in the Y’s childcare program at the former Child Development Center.
“My memories go back longer at the YMCA than any other entity in this community,” said Hammond, a retired senior private banker in Findlay who continues to be a strong Y supporter. “We never know the difference that we could make in the life of a child, and it could start right here at the YMCA.”
Faith, Fitness, and Friendship: A Y Mom’s Triple Win
When Annah Hans needs a break – from life’s stresses, parenting challenges, you name it – she often comes to the Findlay Family YMCA. Here, her time on the treadmill, lifting weights, and connecting with others helps her unwind and refuel for her busy life that includes managing a household with six children.
During her workouts, the kids have fun in the Discovery Center, a free childcare resource for members, available at both the Downtown and East branches, that the Y’s Annual Campaign financially supports. Along with fun activities, other enrichment opportunities, lots of chances to meet other children, the little’s Hans’s enjoy playing while mom focuses on staying healthy.
Discovery Center staff, Annah points out, are certified in Red Cross CPR and First Aid. They also stay up to date on Y-mandated safety training, “so I know they (kids) are in good hands,” she said.
Meanwhile, Annah mixes up her workouts using myriad equipment available. She can be found in the weight room and in the wellness center, walking and lifting to maintain her strength and cardio health. A member of New Life Assembly of God, she said she likes to listen to podcasts, sermons, and worship music in the Y’s environment that’s centered on Christian principals of spiritual wellness, growth, altruism, and connection.
She also enjoys training with Meghan Lay, an ACE Certified Personal Trainer and TRX Certified Instructor. Lay’s fitness motto is, “Believe in yourself and you will be unstoppable.” Annah said she appreciates Megan’s knowledge and expertise, and her knack for inspiring motivation and self-assuredness.
“If my mind isn’t in a good place, then nothing is. I feel like the world teaches us that confidence is vanity. But when you feel confident, it changes everything,” Annah said.
Along with exercising, Annah is also known for making friends – be they staff or other members – at the Y. Her friendly, easy-going demeanor perfectly aligns with the Y’s principles of connection and belonging. “I’ve never felt uncomfortable here,” she pointed out.