FITCHBURG — United Way of North Central Massachusetts (UWNCM) recently distributed $799,146 in grants to 40 agencies throughout the community. Funds were disbursed through two grant programs that seek to address the region’s greatest challenges and provide after and out-of-school time opportunities for local children and youth.
Through its Community Impact Fund for 2023-24, UWNCM awarded $616,335 to 31 agencies, funding 40 programs. The Community Impact Fund is a long-standing UWNCM initiative that supports critical programs in the areas of Early Education and Youth Development, Basic Needs and Economic Opportunity & Financial Literacy.
The latest round of grants was awarded in year three of a four-year cycle and is expected to make an impact for over 97,000 households based on results from the previous year, which saw a 32% increase in households served from year one. Funding will be spread throughout the 22 communities in UWNCM’s service area and support a diverse array of programs.
YMCA of Central Massachusetts – Montachusett Branch in Fitchburg received grants for three programs that will provide enrichment opportunities for children from pre-K to youth as well as support services for families.
The agency’s Executive Director, Lisa Welcome, says, “We are so grateful to UWNCM for their on-going support of our initiatives for children and families. This funding will go a long way to further our cause to strengthen the foundations of community through programs and services that support youth development, healthy living and social responsibility.”
UWNCM also recently distributed $182,810 to 13 agencies through the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s (DESE) After School and Out-of-School Time (ASOST) Program.
Springfield College students can minor in YMCA studies, one of the few programs in the country that prepares graduates for working at a specific organization.
Rosie Tseng was 17 years old when she realized what she wanted to do for the rest of her life.
Though she loved working with children, she had no desire to be a teacher. Nor did her interest in health and physical well-being mean she wanted to be a nutritionist, doctor or professional athlete.
What she wanted to do instead was work for the YMCA, the Christian youth development nonprofit that operates recreation facilities worldwide.
Tseng had long attended—and later served as a counselor at—YMCA camps at the Boroughs Family Branch YMCA in central Massachusetts. As luck would have it, that branch is only about an hour from Springfield College, the only college in the country where students can receive a formal education in the history and operations of the YMCA and even earn a minor in YMCA professional studies.
Rosie Tseng
“I wanted to take what I learned at the Y and pass it forward,” she recalled.
The minor consists of a total of five classes on both general business management and YMCA-specific topics, including the history of the organization beyond its broad reputation as a bare-bones gym and a wildly popular Village People song. The curriculum is currently being redeveloped to keep up with “the needs of the ever-evolving YMCA movement,” according to Scott Woodaman, director of YMCA relations at Springfield, a private institution in Massachusetts.
According to Woodaman, the students in the minor and in the college’s YMCA club, which allows students to participate in YMCA-related activities without taking any classes, have unique access to various internships, volunteer opportunities and entry-level jobs at YMCAs around the country. The students also develop programming to support nearby YMCAs.
“Last year, we did summer learning-loss programming on why it’s important to read over the summertime and made bookmarks and encouraged young people to read,” Woodaman said. “We don’t know what we’re doing this year, because, when the students get back to campus—they’re the ones that designed the program—we hear what the YMCAs need, and then the students come up with the meat of the programming and what they want to deliver.”
With many institutions increasingly focused on career and technical education, it is not uncommon for students to pursue minors or certificates in specific skills relevant to their career path, whether it’s health care or data engineering. But few, if any, focus on a single organization, as Springfield’s YMCA professional studies minor does.
“It fits the pattern across higher education of providing minors, if not majors, that have a more direct workforce connection,” said James Stone, director of the National Research Center for Career & Technical Education, part of the Southern Regional Education Board. “[But] most of the minors … that tend to attract people are things like cybersecurity, which is not specific to an organization.”
Lasting Partnership
Springfield’s history with the YMCA dates back to the college’s founding in the mid-1800s—just a few years after the first YMCA opened—to train Sunday school teachers and YMCA administrators. Well over a century later, the college has grown considerably, serving about 4,000 undergraduate and graduate students; in keeping with its YMCA roots, many students pursue athletics or recreation-based majors, such as physical education. (Aside from its connection to the YMCA, Springfield also has the distinction of being the birthplace of basketball and the original home of the Basketball Hall of Fame.)
Though the college’s partnership with the Y has changed over the years, it remains a central part of Springfield’s identity. The college’s core educational philosophy, Humanics—which “calls for educating students in spirit, mind, and body for leadership in service to others”—derives from the YMCA’s goals of developing a healthy spirit, mind and body. The college houses the YMCA Hall of Fame, which honors volunteers and employees who have made significant contributions to the organization. Springfield’s current president, Mary-Beth A. Cooper, has long been involved with the YMCA, serving as the chairperson for the Greater Rochester YMCA before coming to Springfield.
“I’d worked as a volunteer for 25 years,” she said. “And then I learned that there was actually a college that had a tie to YMCA, so that intrigued me enough to apply.”
The minor lost some students during the pandemic, though Woodaman, who has been in his role for less than a year, plans to recruit incoming freshmen in an effort to build it back up. Historically, the program has appealed in large part to students who were “Y kids”—those who spent a lot of time at their neighborhood YMCA as a child, attending camps or using the recreational facilities. Springfield even recruits at various YMCA events in the surrounding region, with the hope of reaching young people who might not know there is a college they can attend that will allow them to continue to do the community service work they love.
But there are even draws for those who have never set foot in a Y. Students have the opportunity to travel on service-oriented trips—such as expeditions to build houses in the badlands of South Dakota or to help repair a YMCA in Haiti—as well as attend various national YMCA conferences and events.
Stone also said he could see how the minor could potentially prove useful even to students who don’t necessarily want to work at the YMCA, especially if they have an interest in the world of nonprofits or humanitarian work more broadly.
“The role of minors is to try to give you some options,” he said. “What a minor like this might represent is … that they have interest in that general area of helping people, and that would be a positive thing to an employer.”
For what it’s worth, many of the students who complete the minor do go on to work for the organization; a number of Springfield graduates have become leaders either in local Y branches or the national YMCA of the USA, according to Cooper; Tseng is currently a youth development director at her childhood YMCA.
In that role, she said, she’s living out her dream of being involved in YMCA camps and creating “programs for kids of all ages.”
UMass Chan’s Water Safe Worcester program promotes swimming safety for city’s teenagers
Medical and PhD students, residents, postdocs and faculty teaching water safety to 100 teens
By Pat Sargent
August 07, 2023
Teenagers in Worcester are hitting the swim lanes at the YMCA Central Community Branch this summer with free water safety lessons provided by UMass Chan Medical School students and faculty.
The Water Safe Worcester program is underway on Wednesday nights through August. The program is free and open to all teenagers in the Worcester area.
The purpose of the program is to promote water safety, highlight the importance of recognizing signs of danger while they’re swimming in the city’s lakes and ponds, and prevent drowning deaths among teenagers. According to the CDC, for children ages five to 14, drowning is the second leading cause of unintentional injury death after motor vehicle crashes and Black children ages 10 to 14 drown at rates 7.6 times higher than white children in swimming pools.
“Every kid needs this sort of thing. It’s a great combination of water safety and water skills. It’s especially important with this age group because even though they might be able to swim, this program stresses the importance of understanding their surroundings and environment, how to be safe in the water, and how to take care of themselves and each other,” said Pam Suprenant, vice president of youth development and community services for the YMCA of Central Massachusetts.
Around 100 teenagers are expected to participate in the program. The volunteer instructors rotate small groups of teens over the course of the weekly two-hour lessons.
“We’ve been able to adapt the program to the skill levels of each swimmer and find different ways to meet kids where they’re at and really improve their confidence and strength in the water,” said Katharine Playter, a rising second-year medical student and one of the co-leaders of the Water Safe Worcester program.
There are more than a dozen volunteers participating in the program, including UMass Chan medical students, PhD candidates, research associates, residents and faculty. It is led by medical students Kendall Lavin-Parsons, Erin Hurley and Katharine Playter, under the oversight of Kaitlyn Wong, MD, PhD, MPH, assistant professor of surgery and pediatrics, and Alycia Valente, MD, MBE, assistant professor of emergency medicine.
“Everyone knows the risk for little kids because they haven’t yet learned how to swim. However, adolescents also have a fairly high risk of drowning too, particularly the inner-city population as they have fewer opportunities to get in a pool to swim,” Dr. Wong said. “Exposing them to this program and giving them opportunities for education and swim lessons can hopefully educate them on things to be aware of not only in the pool, but in natural bodies of water and give them some foundation to help them along with swimming and decrease their anxiety around the water.”
Under the guidance of Drs. Wong and Valente and third-year medical student Kurren Parida, the Water Safe Worcester program launched during the summer of 2021, when it was developed and students were trained.
Thanks to the Manny 267 Foundation, a charitable organization started in 2021 in memory of Worcester Police Officer Enmanuel “Manny” Familia who died in Green Hill Pond attempting to save a drowning teenager, the Water Safe Worcester program was connected with Suprenant and her team at the YMCA Central Branch. The program is now a smaller part of the YouthConnect program, a summer and after-school program with nearly 600 kids enrolled between several locations, including the YMCA, Friendly House, YWCA, Boys & Girls Club and Worcester Youth Center.
Lavin Parsons oversees the public safety messaging. The Manny 267 Foundation has provided funding for water safety signage to place around the city’s bodies of water. The signs will have QR codes to access the safety tips and warnings in other languages.
The UMass Chan volunteers also organized hands-only CPR classes that run on Tuesday evenings throughout the summer at the YMCA and the other YouthConnect locations across the city. The classes launched on July 18 and are taught by Hurley, a former lifeguard. Like the water safety lessons, the program is free for YouthConnect kids.
“Worcester is a welcome and open community, and we are going to keep having folks move here from all over, so we need to make sure the messaging around our ponds and lakes speaks to everyone about the possible dangers around our recreation sites,” Dr. Valente said.
