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“The YMCA should not just be a convenient nicety. It must always strive to remain a community necessity…”
Born in December 1942, I grew up in Newport News, VA, a shipbuilding town surrounded by beautiful waterways, river views, war museums, and rich history. Schools, public rest facilities, theaters, public transportation, and the local YMCA were all segregated.
As a tiny tot, with the YMCA off limits for me, the YWCA saved the day, and I enrolled in my first childcare and preschool programs there.
My initial YMCA career started in New York City in 1967 as a counselor in the YMCA’s Mobil Youth Program. The Harlem Branch of the YMCA of Greater New York City sponsored the program as part of the Y’s new outreach initiatives.
It was a summer program, designed to bring YMCA activities to underserved kids. We loaded large vans with recreation and sports equipment and drove them into underserved communities. The police closed the designated street. We then unloaded the games and equipment onto the street, and the kids came out to play. It was an Urban Street Camp program.
The success of the YMCA’s Summer Mobile Youth Program led me to an offer to work full-time with the Y of Greater New York. I was assigned to the Clinton Youth Center, located in the Hell’s Kitchen Area. We focused on the teenage gang crisis. In that role, I became a member of the Y’s professional staff.
At the McBurney Branch YMCA, as Dir. of Urban Affairs, I was charged with creating a plan and raising initial seed funds for programs designated for Lower Manhattan, and for a location that eventually became the Chinatown YMCA. From there, I moved into executive positions in Mount Vernon, NY, Oklahoma City, OK, Indianapolis, IN, and eventually back to New York City.
Chuck Kujawa, National Y Camping Executive, once told me that in the YMCA, it helps to be a little nomadic if you want to move up. I did move up, and my wonderful wife, Eleanor “Ronnie,” and our family always supported me.
Joining the Y’s professional staff ranks opened a whole new YMCA world for me of training, travel, international service, fund development, and connecting with great YMCA “Sheros” and Heroes” who, over many years, fought the good fight in making the YMCA what it is today.
My YMCA contacts, colleagues, and friends showered me with such support that I became a believer that a genius is really upholding the Y’s red and blue triangle, a genius that generally leans forward and toward success.
I retired from the Y in 2020 and took a deep breath. Several weeks later, one of my mentors, Bob Wilson, called and invited my wife and me to an elite gathering of friends. That marked the start of my second Y career: YMCA Alumni and the McBurney-Morse Chapter. I was named chapter president and served for four years.
My good friends, Dr. Paul Sharar and Bonnie Mairs, and others offered strong support and worked hard as we all struggled to keep our chapter viable. With Julius Jones’ and Len Wilson’s encouragement, I became Vice President of the East Region of Chapters, just in time to start planning for the 2014 Eastern Region Reunion.
Ronnie and I have one son and four granddaughters; all have worked or participated in the YMCA. Ronnie and I have had many wonderful experiences as Y retirees and as YMCA Alumni members; among the most memorable and satisfying are the annual summer parties given on the shore with the Wilsons, a wonderful vacation in Cambridge, England, hosted by a then-new friend, the late Jim Lamb, as participants in the Y’s Ambassadors Program.
I look forward to continued involvement with YMCA Alumni, building new relationships, refreshing old ones, gaining new growth experiences, and upholding the mission of the YMCA.
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