YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF GREATER ST PETERSBURG INC

Since 1920 our Y has committed the full extent of its resources into southern Pinellas' most impoverished communities to effect lasting change in the areas of youth development, healthy living, and social responsibility. Our goals include breaking the cycle of generational poverty for at-risk families through academic enhancement and financial literacy programs, reducing racial and income disparities in health and drowning through prevention and education, and reducing the overall incidence of preventable chronic disease.

As part of the YMCA of Greater St. Petersburg's strategic efforts to end the academic and health disparities plaguing southern Pinellas County, our Y has committed to expanding its offering of quality, evidence-based programming and collective reach throughout our service area as outlined: 1. Improve our capacity to serve:
a. Locate an appropriate site, develop and construct a full facility YMCA in the northern sector of our association area.
b. Locate an appropriate site, develop and construct three Early Learning Facilities
c. Achieve full capacity at existing facilities.
2. Chronic Disease Prevention and Rehabilitation
a. Launch the YMCA's Diabetes Prevention Program and LiveSTRONG at the YMCA Program
b. Address the clinic to community gap by building partnerships with local healthcare and payor groups to expand physician referral networks
c. Increase awareness and enrollment in current programming – including Moving Forward, Active Older Adults, Fit4AllKids and Arthritis Prevention.
d. Adopt and implement robust Healthy Eating and Physical Activity (HEPA) standards for early childhood and school age programs
e. Expand access to drowning prevention programming and traditional Y swim lessons
3. Achievement Gap
a. Launch preschool programs in three locations across southern Pinellas
b. Improve curriculum offering and data measures for school age programs

For nearly a century, the YMCA of Greater St. Petersburg has provided deliberate, successful neighborhood-based interventions across some of the most vulnerable communities in southern Pinellas County. Driven by our mission, our Y has built the significant infrastructure required to deliver need-specific programs across the area. In fact, the Childs Park, Harbordale, Lake Maggiore, and Mid-town communities, home to four of our five YMCAs and the majority of our 25 school age program locations, are such neighborhoods already receiving these successful place based interventions. These investments have boosted property values, collectively produced over 400 jobs directly in the neighborhoods, encouraged other businesses to follow suit, and brought awareness of the needs of these families into the light resulting in drawing down significant public and private support for direct programming.

The YMCA of Greater St. Petersburg is led by a 27 member governance board representative of the community it serves and manages an annual operating budget of over 10-million dollars– ensuring relevant local community responsiveness.

The YMCA of Greater St. Petersburg has made great strides towards accomplishing the goals set forth in our agencies strategic plan to effect change in south St. Petersburg. In 2013, our Y assumed the operations of an early learning facility located in the Lake Maggiore Shores Neighborhood – in leiu of facility closure. Over $1,000,000 has been raised by our governance board towards the renovation of the aging facility – with the renovation scheduled to occur in June of 2015. Our Y is in the finishing process of the build out of the new Bardmoor YMCA and Early Learning Facility located in Largo and set to open in August 2014.

In late 2012, our Y successfully launched both the YMCA's Diabetes Prevention Program and the LiveSTRONG at the YMCA programs. Since their launch we have been invited by the YMCA of the USA to participate in two large scale federal demonstration projects to test the efficacy of the YMCA's Diabetes Prevention Program – the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation project (1 of 17 Ys) and the Communities Transformation Grant (1 of 7 Ys). We are currently working with a number of community partners in the health care industry including Baycare Health Systems, Johns Hopkins, All Children's Hospital, the Pinellas County Health Department and the Pinellas County branch of the American Medical Association to build the clinic to community referral network for chronic disease prevention and rehabilitation. In 2010, our Y took the pledge to adopt the HEPA standards and has since implemented the standards association-wide, hiring a HEPA coordinator to revamp and evaluate the curriculum in our programs and partnering with the Pinellas County School District to launch an afterschool meal program in 19 Title I schools to address food insecurity and healthy eating.