Gaye Adams Massey

Chief Executive Officer

YWCA St. Paul

Welcome to the Winter 2018 edition of YW News. This is a time of year for reflection and gratitude, and 2017 gave us cause for both. The stories and updates below are just some examples of the great work done at YWCA St. Paul every day. I hope they inspire you as they do me. We begin 2018 with a renewed focus and drive to serve our community and advance our mission: eliminating racism and empowering women. If you're reading this message, you're a part of that, and we're grateful for your support.

Knowing where you come from can be a motivation, an inspiration and a comfort. Learn how a YWCA St. Paul employment counselor uses her passion for genealogy to help program participants here.

More than 200 children participated in the 17th annual Shop with a Cop event on Saturday, Dec. 2, including many children from our families in Housing & Supportive Services (HSS). The event received national coverage from NBC Nightly News, which you can see here: ‘Shop With Cops’ program pairs children and police officers for holiday shopping.

YWCA St. Paul Youth staff accompanied several young women from the Young Women’s Initiative to Washington, D.C. for The National Crittenton Foundation’s “In Solidarity We Rise: Healing, Opportunity and Justice for Girls” conference. Read about their takeaways here.

Keep your fitness resolutions on track, fine-tune your sense of balance, perfect your backstroke or teach kids that fitness is fun—all of that and more is waiting at the Health & Fitness Center this winter!

Visit ywcaofstpaul.org/catalog to view the full catalog of classes, hours and updates.

Good employees can be hard to find, and good jobs can be hard to keep. YWCA St. Paul’s Career Pathways program helps participants like Michael Lopez find not just a job, but truly a career, through the program. 

Read more about how Career Pathways helps participants succeed here .  

Fran Ouellette has worked at YWCA St. Paul since 1976! Those who attend her classes appreciate her attention to form and alignment as well as her own grace and strength; learn a bit more here.

We believe in a community that is employed, housed, empowered and healthy, and we've been working toward that mission for more than 100 years. This photo, from our 1974 Health & Fitness Center class catalog, is just one example of our history of changing minds, bodies and lives—find more examples on our social media pages!