I recently joined the board of the D. Bradley McWilliams Family YMCA, located in my community of Cypress, Texas.  The YMCA was an essential part of my childhood and adolescence, and my children spent many hours enjoying YMCA classes and activities. As an adult, however, I have grown to understand how truly essential the YMCA is to our communities - not just to our physical health, but to our mental and social wellbeing. The YMCA is more than a "gym and swim" - we transform our communities and provide essential services that improve equality, opportunity, education and health.

My fundraising page is to raise money as part of our YMCA's Better Us campaign. 100% of the funds raised from this campaign stay in our own YMCA, in our Cypress, TX community. We have an overall goal of $155,000 with three primary initiatives: 

1) End Isolation

2) Fight Inequity

3) Inspire Youth to Thrive

Money raised will help subsidize memberships for seniors and others, for whom social opportunities are critical to maintain mental wellbeing and avoid isolation. We will fund swim & safety around water lessons for children who otherwise would not be able to attend; this is especially important in Houston, where drowning is the leading cause of unintentional death in 1-4 year olds. (A $50 donation provides swim lessons to one child!) We will send kids and adolescents to camp, and continue to fund a critical after school program at Ashford Santa Cruz apartments in Houston.

Any donation - no matter how small - does make a difference!

Kim