Welcome to Springfield

After a very inspiring and thought provoking 3 days with the YMCA of Greater New York it was time to move on to the second leg of our discovery visit. Day 4 began with an early start at Springfield College in Massachusetts. Our host for this part of the visit was Erin Friedman, the Director of YMCA relations at the college.

Despite Springfield being a normal US College, educating 1400 undergraduates a year, evidence of its YMCA roots were clear with the Body, Mind and Spirit Triangle displayed prominently on buildings and still part of the college's logo.

Springfield College began life in 1885 as the YMCA School for Christian Workers before evolving to become the YMCA Training School for much of its history. We learnt about the college's place in YMCA history providing training for YMCA professionals from across North America and the world.

Today any student at the college can add a minor in YMCA professional studies to any major study and it provides an opportunity for all students, not just those interested in a YMCA career to develop their academic skill set through courses, volunteer work and networking.

Posted on behalf of Jason Beattie - YMCA Norfolk

We spent a very interesting 45 minutes in the college museum with archivist Jeffery Monseau, who shared the story of basketball's invention at the college in 1891 and showed us different YMCA artefacts. This museum also hosts the YMCA Hall of Fame. A fascinating morning, which put in context the on going mission of the YMCA world wide.

Our afternoon was spent in Marlborough, at the Alliance meeting of the YMCAs from across Massachusetts. The Alliance Director, Peter Doliber, explained that this was a formalised partnership of 30 YMCAs operating over 410 locations and that the Alliance was able to access state funding for different projects which was then distributed to the individual YMCAs to do the delivery.

Peter presented an annual update to the 160 people present. YMCAs had served 1/5 of Massachusett's residents, had distributed $60m in financial aid, given $32m in scholarships to college, had focused on improving child literacy and facilitated 250 young people to engage in a youth Government prog

Three awards were made to public policy champions. The Youth Development award went to Commissioner Thomas Weber of the Early Education Department. The Social Responsibility award was given to Speaker of the House, Robert Deleo for bringing in state laws around gun safety, drug prevention and early education. The Health Living award went to state representative, Aaron Vega.

Giving awards to politicians and people of influence is somethings we have experienced in both New York and Massachusetts and it is very simple and way to build relationship and engage support from those with the power to help the work of the YMCA.