PORT TOWNSEND — The county branch of the Olympic Peninsula YMCA is essential in providing youth services but needs community contributions to continue filling that need, the group’s executive director told the Jefferson County Chamber of Commerce Monday.
“People have forged important relationships at the Y,” Erica Delma, the county YMCA branch’s program executive director, said to an audience of about 45 people at the chamber meeting.
“They might look like marriage, or mentee/mentor relationships or like best friends.”
Delma said she had her own personal connection with the YMCA, having attended camp on Orcas Island when she was just 8 years old, something that prompted her to reconnect with the organization as an adult and assume her current position.
Delma said the YMCA owes a lot to the nonprofit social services organization United Good Neighbors, especially since the city of Port Townsend stopped its regular support in 2011.
“We still partner with the city, but it was shock to have a have a financial change that significant when you go from being a contract service provider to losing the contract and you are faced with replacing 60 percent of your funding overnight,” Delma said.
Delma credited United Good Neighbors with bridging the gap and allowing the YMCA to continue providing safety net services.
According to Delma, the YMCA’s annual budget is $400,000.
User fees provide 30 percent of that amount, and 70 percent comes from donations and foundations such as United Good Neighbors, which contributed $33,000 in 2014.
While the YMCA supplies a variety of services, the most important is child care, according to Delma, since it is the only licensed child care service inside the Port Townsend city limits.
Delma said that about 100 families count on child care, with expanded care during the summer “which allows the working parents and grandparents in our community to be at work and know their children are safe,” Delma said.
Families who can pay it are charged $225 a month, but several are heavily subsidized so they can afford the service.
Delma told the story of a single mother will a full-time job who was cut off from the subsidy because she made too much money.
This forced a choice between having a job and giving her children adequate care.
The YMCA was able to provide the financial assistance in order for her to keep her job and the child care service, Delma said.
This approach trickles down to everything the YMCA does, Delma said.
“At the Y we have a motto that everyone can play,” she said.
“That means we don’t turn anyone away for inability to pay.
“We have comprehensive financial assistance and will make it possible for anyone to participate.”
For more information on the YMCA, visit www.jeffersoncountyymca.org.
For information about the United Good Neighbors Fund Drive, which helps fund and bring awareness for area social service providers, visit www.weareugn.org.
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Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
