Happy February and Happy Giving Hearts Day.
How did half of February pass by so quickly? Pretty soon, we will be wearing shorts again and heading outside in warmer than -25 degree weather!
I love the saying “A picture is worth a thousand words.” However, I think maybe we should add, “until it’s not….”
I like to play around with a camera and have gotten pretty good at taking photos of architecture and art pieces. I haven’t figured out how to take pictures of people. I get the concept of taking pictures of people and do it regularly. I know how to frame them and capture their smile, but you know when you see some photos by true artists the person in the frame comes alive and almost jumps off the page or screen. I don’t know if I will ever have that skill or not, but I will keep working on it.
Some days at the Y, you can take a picture with your mind’s camera. You know what I am talking about. You can see the group exercise class that is going on. You can see the coffee ladies sitting and talking after taking their classes. You can see that person who is lifting all that weight on the fitness floor. You can see the kids as they walk to their child care rooms or play on the play structures.
You see the Y.
Or do you?
Each day the Y is doing so many things for so many people. Who do you see when the Y gives a scholarship to join the Y and participate in those group exercise classes? They aren’t labeled and look like everyone else. Who do you see when a group of children walk by from a childcare classroom to the gym? Which of them are receiving financial assistance to belong at the Y? And, I could ask these questions each and every day and they would be hard to answer.
Yes, the pictures tell a thousand words, but the stories of these families and individuals tell 10,000 words of the impact of the Y.
This is never truer than our work at Camp Cormorant. Each year 1,000 children attend camp and around 30% of those are on scholarship to participate and have an outdoor experience. Every third child at camp needs your help to be there. Most of the children we serve through scholarships are also foster kids. Is there a better way for a child to set their life aside than by spending a week at camp? I think not.
Our former youth director says it best. When he would take kids out to Camp Cormorant, he had a pretty good idea of which kids in his programs were receiving a scholarship to participate. But he was the only one. No one else knew.
He said, “when you have three kids standing in the lake staring at the inflatable iceberg, not one of them is saying I have less than those other two, and the other two aren’t saying I have more than the other one. All they care about at that moment is how are they going to swim out there and climb to the top of that iceberg.” Kids being kids.
You make this possible through a gift for Giving Hearts Day. Help us raise $110,000 this year and send more kids to camp to experience that thrill of climbing to the top of that iceberg. You help us let kids be kids and your gift will help the Y’s story be worth way more than a thousand words.
I think the pictures of the Y are so much more!
Change a child’s life and make a gift today!
See you at the Y!
Steve Smith, President and CEO
Posted on: February 12, 2025