Note: To donate to the fund-raising campaign for the new YMCA (and its Hummer Pool) contact:
Dan Akeley, Executive Director,
Huntington YMCA,
607 Warren St.,
Huntington, IN 46750,
260-356-4200,
ymcadan@kconline.com
From The Herald Press12/18/06
Goal: $8 million; In hand: $5.4 million; Yet to raise: $2.6 million
It will take $8 million to build a new YMCA, and that's the amount the Y's fund-raising committee has set as its goal.
With the $2 million gift from Parkview Huntington Hospital - seven acres of land worth $450,000 and a pledge of $1.55 million in cash from the hospital's Community Benefit dollars - the capital campaign committee now has $5.4 million in hand, said Dan Akeley, the YMCA's executive director.
That $5.4 million, which includes pledges that will be paid over the next five years, came in as the result of a campaign that began in May as YMCA volunteers contacted potential major donors, Akeley said.
That leaves the YMCA with $2.6 million yet to raise. Some of that will come from additional major donors, Akeley said, but the Y hopes to raise $250,000 from people throughout Huntington County who are everyday users (or former users) of the facility.
An effort to reach those people will begin in late January and continue until June, Akeley said. YMCA volunteers will begin with personal contacts and later use phone calls and letters to solicit donations.
From The Herald Press, 12/18/06
The inside story: Nearly double the usable space
By CINDY KLEPPER, City Editor
The new Parkview Huntington YMCA will encompass about 52,000 square feet, all on one floor, with two pools, two basketball floors, and an elevated walking track.
By comparison, the current facility has about 30,000 square feet of usable space on three levels, one pool, one basketball court, and no dedicated place to walk - although it does have numerous nooks and crannies that may have had a function when the Warren street building opened in 1930, but now serve no useful purpose.
The new building was designed by Moake Park Group, a Fort Wayne-based architectural firm whose work can be seen in the Parkview Huntington Hospital building as well as the Jorgensen Family YMCA in Allen County. Moake Park's design for the Huntington YMCA was intended for a 14-acre site north of Huntington that the YMCA board originally planned to purchase, said Dan Akeley, the Y's executive director. The building and parking areas would have occupied only seven acres of that site, Akeley said, and can be moved to the Parkview site practically unchanged.
"The floor plans will basically be the same," Akeley said. "It worked for both sites."
The remainder of the original 14-acre site would have held a soccer field, two retention ponds, and a fitness trail. At the new site, retention ponds are already in place outside the YMCA's seven acres. Although there's no room for a soccer field, there's a possibility of additional property being made available for soccer sometime in the future.
In addition to surveying members about what they wanted in a new facility, YMCA board members checked out features of other recently built YMCAs.
"We learned a lesson from the Jorgensen YMCA," Akeley said. "They have one pool, and if someone has an accident in the pool, they have to shut down the whole thing."
The Huntington Y board decided to go with two pools, side by side.
"If somebody has an accident, we can just shut the one pool down," Akeley said.
The smaller pool will have a "zero," or sloped, entry making it accessible to people in wheelchairs and others with limited mobility. It's water will be warm enough to be comfortable for swimming and aerobics classes.
The second pool will be large enough to be used by swim teams and can also be used to host meets.
The gym's two basketball courts can be separated by a curtain. A fitness center will include both free weights and cardio equipment, and an adjacent aerobics/dance area will feature floating floors.
A walking track, one-tenth of a mile long, will be suspended around the perimeter of the gym, fitness center, and aerobics/dance area.
An expanded child watch area will be located next to two preschool rooms.
Times change so you can find updates at the Huntington (IN) YMCA Swimmers Group on Facebook (see link on right).
Please join us there for all the "latest" although it's hard to come up with news about a team that has not been coached by Glen S. "Butch" Hummer since 1979. If this is your 1st visit here hopefully you will enjoy the posts. This blog has been running since 2007 and there have been 3531 page views to date. Be sure to click the links on the right for past years' postings. Feel free to add a comment and thanks for having a look around.
