History of the YMCA in Shasta County
In the early years, the YMCA in Shasta County was a man in Marysville. Rudy Albrecht, secretary of the sprawling YMCA Mountain District, periodically came to Redding to speak to service groups and parent clubs about juvenile delinquency and character building. That was in the late-1930s. Redding didn’t have a YMCA building and there were no YMCA classes, basketball games, swimming lessons or other programs.
Much has changed. Shasta Family YMCA celebrates its 80th anniversary this year. The nonprofit organization has 9,000 members and a $5.5 million budget. Its six-acre complex in downtown Redding encompasses two large buildings with weight rooms, treadmills, pickleball courts, fitness class spaces, a yoga studio, child care areas, a playground, offices, a coffee bar and three swimming pools. Some 1,300 people walk through the doors each day. Many come to swim, lift weights, take an exercise class, but The Y is more than a place to work out. Shasta Family YMCA feeds children, supports people with disabilities, gives teens a safe place to be after school, and has programs to help seniors with their health and families with young children.
CEO Kristen Lyons states, "The Y’s longevity in Shasta County is a reflection of the nonprofit organization being 'flexible and forward facing'". That shape-shifting stretchiness allowed it not just to survive, but to thrive. As the community grew and changed over the decades, so too did the YMCA, adjusting programming to meet community needs.
“You change and adapt,” Lyons says.
Big Picture
The history of the YMCA in Shasta County has many layers and includes many people. The leaders and volunteers who got it going and kept it growing varied in personality, background and strategy but all were stubbornly committed to a flourishing local YMCA.
YMCAs are found across the nation and throughout the world. George Williams was in his early 20s when he started the Young Men’s Christian Association in 1844 in London as a simple Bible study group. Industrialization was upending the small-farm economy, resulting in young men moving to the city for jobs. Williams wanted to offer them a wholesome alternative to saloons and brothels.
In 1851, the YMCA came to America. Established in Boston, the focus there also was on helping young men avoid the risks found in the city. The Boston YMCA provided Bible classes, prayer meetings and support in finding jobs. Two years later, the Shasta Courier noted the organization was in San Francisco. The newspaper reported the YMCA would “guard the young and unwary by providing them with suitable employment, guarding them from temptation and introducing them into refined and virtuous society. Nothing could be more laudable than such an undertaking.”
By 1854 there were 49 YMCAs in the United States. The organization expanded quickly from there, earning admiration for its assistance programs. During the Civil War YMCA volunteers helped in battlefields and hospitals. YMCAs began night classes in English as a second language and also offered classes in penmanship, bookkeeping and additional skills. The organization provided libraries, gyms and dormitories in many cities. Fitness became a focus. The Y invented basketball and volleyball.
While initially serving young, Christian men, over time the YMCA became inclusive. Women were welcomed and the organization dropped its theological identification while remaining committed to the Christian principles of caring, honesty, respect and responsibility. The Y’s aim is to serve men and women of all ages, incomes, faiths and backgrounds.
Mountain District YMCA
In Shasta County, the YMCA surfaced in the 1930s by way of the YMCA Mountain District, which covered Northern California counties north of Sacramento minus the coastal region. Rudy Albrecht, based in Marysville, was the district secretary. Albrecht’s main role in Shasta County was as a speaker. He gave talks on Christian values to Rotary, Lions Club and other service organizations, as well as parent clubs. In 1939 he organized a Hi-Y Club for boys and a Tri-Y Club for girls in the Shasta Union High School District. Albrecht also coordinated youth conferences in McArthur where more than 100 teens from north state high schools came together.
World War II brought a shift in focus to the YMCA. Albrecht addressed the Redding Chamber of Commerce in November 1944 about the importance of YMCA programs to support soldiers returning from World War II by providing opportunities for recreation and fellowship.
Shasta District YMCA
On visits to Redding, Albrecht sometimes met for breakfast at the Golden Eagle Hotel with an informal group of Redding residents eager for Shasta County to have its own YMCA. A YMCA less sweeping than the Mountain District came to be. Shasta District YMCA formed in the fall of 1945. It included Shasta, Trinity, Lassen, Modoc and Siskiyou counties. The Redding YMCA Committee met for the first time on December 17, 1945 at the Golden Eagle Hotel as Shasta County’s connection to the five-county YMCA. Four men attended the first meeting. Less than a week later, the group decided the committee should have at least 15 members and women would be included. Of key concern for the group were the many young men coming back to Shasta County from the battlefields of World War II. The Redding YMCA Committee vowed to work with veterans services, churches and organizations to link returning soldiers to recreational activities, housing and fellowship.
Carl Metzger arrived in Redding from Yuma, Arizona in 1945 to make Redding his home and to lead the new Shasta District YMCA. The five-county district received its YMCA charter in July 17, 1946. This became the official charter date of the YMCA in Shasta County. As general secretary (the leadership title for local YMCAs in that era), Metzger continued the tradition of speaking to community groups. The role of The Y, he said, was “to create, maintain and extend throughout school and community high standards of Christian character.”
During its first year, Shasta District YMCA organized a recreational basketball league for middle school and high school boys in Redding who hadn’t made their school teams. Organizers wanted “to provide recreation and play for the largest number of boys possible.” Shasta District YMCA also sponsored a softball league for boys and the Employed Girls Club for young working women, which offered swimming parties and badminton games.
YMCA conferences for teens continued to be popular. Three hundred delegates attended “A New World YMCA” in April 1946 at Richardson Springs in Butte County. Panel discussions included “The Drinking Problem,” “Why Go to College?” “Religious Values,” “Boy-and-Girl Friendships” and “Race Relations.” Shasta Union High School’s delegation moderated a conversation on vocations. The Record Searchlight noted that a highlight for the Shasta High group was Redding’s Miss Garnet Lowden performing an accordion solo at Talent Night.
General Secretary Metzger made youth fitness a priority. Concerned that students in rural schools might not have the same opportunities for sports competitions as those in town, he worked with the Shasta County Office of Education to launch play days for rural students in 1948. Students competed in kickball, foot races, high jump, volleyball and other events. Metzger would be on scene, explaining the rules of kickball and acting as official timekeeper for races.
Shasta County YMCA
Shasta District YMCA struggled financially to cover the large geographic area of five counties. At a May 1949 Board of Directors meeting, Board President W.D. Simons reported that the district’s war chest of $3,000 had been used up and no incoming funds were anticipated for the next few months.
“We face two decisions,” Simons told the board. “Shall we fold up or shall we move ahead?”
The consensus of the group was to narrow the focus to a single YMCA in Shasta County. Shasta County dropped out of the district YMCA. With a cash balance of $776, the Redding group applied to the National Council of the YMCA for membership as Shasta County YMCA
The Record Searchlight endorsed the decision for a more focused direction and praised the YMCA’s impact in Redding. An editorial published in February 1950 said, “… it is the one agency that has found successful ways to help teenagers and those in their early 20s to understand the problems they meet as they mature.”
Shasta County YMCA was certified as an independent YMCA in July 1950. Minutes from a board meeting that month stated, “Shasta County YMCA represents an emphasis on the family as the center of YMCA work.”
The minutes noted the organization would include both men and women as members. Shasta County YMCA’s constitution was adopted in May 1952. It stated the group’s purpose was “to advance the Christian way of living by providing opportunities for development of the whole personality in body, mind and spirit.”
Metzger had retired in late 1949 when Shasta County left the district YMCA. Twenty-nine-year-old Willard Eaton came aboard as General Secretary of Shasta County YMCA in the fall of 1951. Eaton moved to Redding with his wife Dorothy and their 7-month-old daughter. He hit the ground running, organizing a no-referee youth basketball program that operated on the honor system. Erring players could call fouls on themselves but not on opponents.
Eaton followed the tradition of giving community speeches, traveling to schools throughout the county to speak to parent groups on “Spiritual Values Begin at Home” and “Making the Grade as a Father.” He started a chapter of Y-Indian Guides, a national YMCA program with activities encouraging positive relationships between fathers and their young sons. (Years later the program would be rebranded as Y Adventure Guides due to concerns about stereotyping Indigenous cultures.)
Camp McCumber
In the 1950s, many YMCAs were providing youth overnight camping programs. The camps were seen as key to building confidence, character and leadership. A summer camp seemed a good fit for Shasta County. YMCA leaders found a potential place some 40 miles east of Redding and joined with the Redding Area Council of Camp Fire Girls to lease 13 acres of forest next to Lake McCumber from Pacific Gas & Electric Co.
Camp McCumber got its first overnight test in 1953 as a reward for 14 children attending The Y’s day camp in Anderson. The following summer weekly camps were held. Cost was $15.50 for one week plus 50 cents for health/accident insurance. Children sold bars of soap to defray their costs. In later years, candy-coated peanuts sales helped children get to camp.
To call the original camp rustic is to be generous. Campers hauled water from a spring a half mile away. Sleeping options were in a tent or out in the open. Children brought dishes and utensils from home. Meals were served under the pine trees and a log fire heated water in a tank for showers. The first restrooms were outhouses. Bathrooms with running water didn’t become part of Camp McCumber until 1959.
Camp McCumber offered archery, boating, swimming, crafts, skits, singing and ghost stories. Also, there was the Horizontal Club, of which all campers were mandatory members. It required spending one hour napping each afternoon.
The community pitched in to get Camp McCumber up and running. A wish list of items for the camp was shared in the newspaper, asking for donations of oars, hand tools, kitchen utensils, horseshoes, a typewriter and a bugle. Volunteers helped build the dock, dining room and other facilities. Shasta College carpentry students constructed the first tent cabins. Young campers cleared brush for a ball field.
Lake McCumber, a manmade reservoir, went dry at times due to maintenance on PG&E’s hydroelectric operations. The YMCA’s annual Camp McCumber report in 1961 notes: “Camp McCumber had a good season in spite of dust and lack of water in the lake.” A year later, the report stated: “A good summer was had by all. In place of swimming, we had weekly track meets on the floor of the lake, which was nice and soft for the jumping events.”
Camp McCumber Corporation formed in 1972 to operate the camp. Shasta Family YMCA, Camp Fire Boys and Girls, and Lions Clubs were the original member organizations. Participating organizations changed through the years. Today the partners are Shasta Family YMCA and the Lions Clubs in District 4-C1. The camp is used for their camp sessions and is rented by other organizations, as well as churches, schools and families.
Camp McCumber is well loved. The YMCA’s two summer sessions for those entering third through ninth grades have capacity for 100 campers each. There are often wait lists.
Helen Meléndez-Vela, Director of Mission Advancement and Family Services for Shasta Family YMCA, says, "Camp McCumber is a special place where children make friends and gain confidence. The camp becomes a tradition, with many going on to become counselors."
“It is so near and dear to my heart,” Meléndez-Vela says. “They create such lasting memories.”
At camp, children unplug from technology and social media and are immersed in nature. They sing camp songs, look through telescopes, swim in the lake, canoe, play tetherball, try archery.
“They get to experience the world in such a simple way,” Meléndez-Vela says.
The Eatons
The scouting team of YMCA officials who found the location for Camp McCumber in 1952 was made up of General Secretary Willard Eaton and his wife Dorothy, who had been surprised to learn Shasta County didn’t have a youth camp when they moved to Redding from Southern California in 1951. They were joined in the search by YMCA board members Gil Collyer and Jim Albertson. After finding the location and helping to establish the camp, the Eatons became central to running it. Willard was in charge of the boys and Dorothy led the girls.
Willard Eaton died in August 1958 at the age of 36 in San Francisco from complications of a brain tumor. He had continued to generate plans for Camp McCumber and to work on other YMCA projects from his San Francisco hospital room for many weeks following surgery in May. An editorial in the Record Searchlight expressed the heartbreak of the community: “Eaton was one of those semi-public servants that a community hires, underpays and loads unmercifully with extra tasks. His was no 40-hour week … he cheerfully and willingly did all the jobs he was supposed to do and all of the other jobs he shouldn’t have been expected to do.”
Dorothy Eaton found herself a widow with children ages 7, 5 and 3. Her commitment to Shasta County YMCA did not waiver. She stepped in to manage The Y office and keep programs going. She filled the leadership role for nearly a year until John Quilhot of Salt Lake City was hired as General Secretary in July 1959. Dorothy Eaton would remain active as a board member and volunteer with The Y for many years. Her involvement with Camp McCumber earned her the loving title of Mother McCumber.
Redding Y’s Men
Shasta County YMCA got a new force of support in January 1960 with the launch of Redding Y’s Men. The local club began with 24 members and was part of a national fellowship dedicated to helping local YMCAs.
The Record Searchlight shared the news of the club’s formation, noting: “… the new service group will be adding energy to a program that has considerable momentum.”
Nationwide, the big fundraiser for Y’s Men clubs was selling Christmas trees, an activity that started in Minnesota in 1938. The Redding club embraced the tradition. For more than 30 years, Redding Y’s Men volunteers cut white fir trees east of Redding on W.M. Beaty & Associates lands (owner William Beaty was a longtime supporter of The Y). The club made $5,000 to $7,000 a year in tree sales.
John Crowe joined the Redding Y’s Men in 1978 after moving to Redding and remembers cutting trees in the forest, as well as assisting with sales in a parking lot off Athens Avenue in Redding.
The trees were not as perfectly formed as those from a tree farm. “They weren’t cultured trees. We had a sign up that said: ‘These are the way God made them.’” Crowe recalls.
The club had plenty of loyal customers who made it a tradition to support the local YMCA by purchasing a tree each season from Redding Y’s Men.
The club had other money-making activities. They sold BBQ beef sandwiches, hot dogs, popcorn and snow cones at Redding’s Fourth of July celebration and the Redding Rodeo Parade, hosted the Beautiful Baby Pageant (winner based on the baby’s health, beauty and parents’ ability to sell coupon books), sold a cookbook of local recipes (spotlighting Celery Casserole, Hamburger Noodle Bake, Fruit Cocktail Cake and other 1970s hits), and held Christmas breakfasts with Santa Claus. A club newsletter reporting on one holiday breakfast noted, “… it was a grand success. There were 50 kids and a fat and sassy Santa Claus.”
One of the club’s longest-running ventures was Kiddieland at Lake Redding Park. The small-scale amusement park had children’s train and plane rides, a little Ferris wheel, a funhouse with mirrors, miniature golf, and a zoo with a rotating cast of creatures, including raccoons, birds, rabbits, a bobcat and a couple of monkeys.
Redding residents and retired farmers Roy and Lottie Wilsey created Kiddieland after purchasing a 1917 carousel for $10,000 in Leavenworth, Kansas from the C.W. Parker Carousel Company in 1949 and trucking it to Redding. The Wilseys leased land at Lake Redding Park from the city of Redding for their attractions. Roy Wilsey, who served as a Shasta County supervisor in the 1950s, built most of Kiddieland’s rides. In 1961, after running the park for more than a decade, the Wilseys transferred its operation to the Redding Y’s Men.
Redding children cherished Kiddieland. It was popular for birthday parties, school field trips and family outings. Kiddieland was never a big moneymaker for the Y’s Men, however. Rides were 10 cents each at first, rising to 25 cents eventually. Over time, community interest faded, the rides needed maintenance, insurance costs spiked, and the Y’s Men struggled to find enough spry volunteers to keep up with the place.
Kiddieland ended operation in 1975. In the spring of 1976, the Ferris wheel, train, colorful horses from the merry-go-round, and other components (minus the zoo, which had closed in 1966) were auctioned off. Folks came from as far away as Texas and Alaska to purchase pieces of the park. The sale brought in $7,000.
Redding Y’s Men disbanded in 2009 due to dwindling membership. The club turned over its remaining dollars plus its snow cone and popcorn machines to the YMCA. During its run of nearly 50 years, Redding Y’s Men raised some $100,000 for the YMCA and provided countless hours of volunteer labor, according to a history compiled by charter member Arl Anderson. It also hosted three Y’s Men conventions in Redding.
A contribution of key importance was $30,000 given to the YMCA building campaign on the club’s 20th anniversary in 1980. The $7,000 proceeds from the Kiddieland sale had been the seed money for the donation.
Pursuing a Building
A YMCA building had long been a dream. Without a facility, The Y held basketball games in school gyms, swimming lessons at hotel pools and classes in churches. The Y’s first office was the ticket booth in the Shasta High School gym. Another early office was a downtown Redding space shared with a church and furnished with donated items. Over the decades, the YMCA moved from one rented location to another.
As early as 1949 the Redding YMCA Committee had been considering building possibilities. Minutes from that year show the group proposing $2,000 be set aside for a facility. A lot near the Veterans Memorial Hall in downtown Redding was eyed but didn’t pan out.
After being appointed general secretary of Shasta County YMCA in 1959, John Quilhot pushed for a community facility. He wrote an article for the Record Searchlight saying children in Shasta County desperately needed a recreation building, noting school gyms often were not available for YMCA games and programs.
Youth fitness had become a matter of much importance. Worried that American children weren’t measuring up to youngsters in other countries, President Dwight Eisenhower began an effort in 1960 to get children in shape. Shasta County YMCA responded with a nine-week program to make Redding-area boys in 4th through 8th grades “fit and trim.”
“I think you are at the point where you ought to move ahead and move on a building,” George Bottomly, a regional director of the YMCA, told Shasta County YMCA officials in 1967.
YMCA leaders had been investigating a long-term lease of city-owned land next to Lake Redding Park and eyeing a 3- to 5-acre site that was part of Gold Hills subdivision on the northeast side of Redding. A lease/purchase of Cascade Racquet Club (what is likely now Sun Oaks) was seriously pursued but ultimately fizzled.
The building push got pushback. There were concerns about the amount of money a center would require to either purchase, lease or build, and how many dollars would be needed to keep it going. When Bruce Montgomery became general secretary of Shasta County YMCA in 1968, he pumped the brakes on the idea of a building. The Y’s membership needed to be significantly higher to justify a facility, he said “A building might be appropriate in three to five years from now,” he told the community.
Finances were a challenge for The Y. In October 1971 a Record Searchlight story reported the YMCA would need to stop activities until the end of the year unless it got an infusion of $5,000. Enterprise Lions Club came to the rescue, organizing a fundraiser to sell 10,000 pumpkins for pies and jack-o’-lanterns to raise money for The Y.
When Don Huebner came on as YMCA Director in September 1974, the leadership position had been left vacant for almost a year. The Y had to borrow $9,000 to pay his salary until the end of the year and meet other expenses. In his small rented office, Huebner used cardboard boxes to store paperwork and a hollow-core door laid flat as a desk.
A multiyear campaign to raise $900,000 to help sustain YMCA operations and obtain a building kicked off in 1979. The following year, a promising option emerged for a building location — a 2½-acre piece of land along South Bonnyview Road. It would be donated by developers to The Y as a condition of city approval for what was then the largest housing project ever proposed in Redding. The project called for single family homes, condominiums and apartments, but the plans stalled, with developers concerned about an economic downturn and high interest rates. The proposed development eventually was abandoned.
YMCA supporters were disappointed but not ready to give up. And after many false starts, The Y found success. In September 1983 YMCA officials signed escrow papers to purchase Diamond International Corporation’s vacant 19,600-square-foot building materials outlet and the four acres it was situated on along North Court Street for $502,000.
“It’s the first time in more than 30 years that The Y will have its own home in Shasta County,” Huebner said in an interview with the newspaper. “Our primary goal is to provide programs for all ages. We want this to be a family YMCA.”
Building the Building
The YMCA facility would be basic: a multipurpose room for exercising with locker rooms and office space. But transforming the retail warehouse that once had been filled with lumber into a community YMCA was still a big lift.
Most of the work was done by volunteers, with professional crews called in from time to time. Gil Collyer led the volunteers. They were from Redding Y’s Men and Rotary Club of West Redding. Collyer was well known as Shasta College’s first president. He’d taken the community college from 275 students in 1949 to nearly 10,000 by the time he retired in 1973. Collyer’s second community identity was Mr. YMCA. He had been among the first to join Shasta County YMCA and was key in getting Redding Y’s Men established. Collyer helped find the location for Camp McCumber and served on the YMCA’s Board of Directors for many years. It was no surprise that he jumped into the YMCA construction project with enthusiasm.
“Gil was amazing,” says longtime YMCA member John Crowe, who was part of the volunteer crew and spent many hours pounding nails into 2-by-4s. Crowe remembers Collyer being on site, working hard and always being good-humored.
There was much to be done.
“It was gutted,” Crowe says of the building.
The National Office of the YMCA in Chicago got word of the plucky project and sent a reporter to Redding. The article in the November/December 1984 issue of the YMCA’s national magazine Discovery YMCA was titled, “The Do-It-Yourself YMCA.”
Volunteers were “up on the roof, putting down sheet metal; inside the building, doing wiring and walls; and they’re all over the grounds around the 19,000-square-foot structure,” the story noted. “Some were skilled workers in the building trades, others are in business. The majority are retired academicians and longtime Y supporters whose dreams are being realized.
“These volunteers are primarily members of the Y’s Men Club and community volunteers. They come dressed in overalls, tools and plans in hand to hammer, nail and saw away in great delight. Some who retired from desk jobs long ago readily admit they haven’t had this much fun in years.”
Collyer told the reporter that “much of the volunteer power resulted from people seeing others working so hard.”
Redding radio station KQMS praised YMCA volunteers for “mucking out the malodorous old plumbing, hauling junk to the dump, sweeping, mopping, painting, carpentering, installing equipment — you name it and they’ve had their hands in it.”
By January 1985 the building was ready to open.
“I’m sure the community is going to enjoy this,” Huebner said in a newspaper interview.
He estimated the YMCA got $125,000 in improvements to the building for an expenditure of $50,000 because of volunteer labor and donations of building materials.
In September 1985, less than a year after The Y moved into the North Court Street facility, Collyer died from a heart attack while playing tennis. An editorial in the Record Searchlight paid tribute: “Gil Collyer did not just lend his name to causes. He dedicated his time, his energy and his talents to them. And he was as willing to pick up hammer and nails as he was the gavel of leadership to help a project or cause.”
Expanding
The Y soon launched a drive to bring in $750,000 to support the next building phase, which called for finishing the double gymnasium, adding an area with cardio equipment and additional office space. And so it would go. Additions and remodels became a theme of Shasta Family YMCA. Key projects were:
— 1989 new gymnasium/basketball complex featuring wood floors
— 1996 a $200,000 expansion with heated outdoor pool, new locker rooms, remodeled spaces
— 1998 a $300,000 project with child care area, a mezzanine for cardio-fitness equipment, upgraded aerobics room
— 2002 a $1.2 million remodel/addition with indoor pool, new locker rooms, computer lab, expanded workout area
— 2005 a $1.5 million expansion with youth center, multipurpose gym, office spaces, child care facilities, lobby with coffee bar
— 2012 a $600,000 expansion with additional group exercise studios and more treadmills and other fitness equipment
James Finck was hired as Executive Director in April 1995 and was in the leadership role during many of the expansions. He held the director job for 13 years before leaving to lead the YMCA in Austin, Texas
Finck says, "Partnerships with service clubs, agencies and other entities are key to the success of a YMCA."
An example of a successful Shasta Family YMCA partnership is First Grade Learn-to-Swim. About 25 years ago, The Y joined forces with Redding Elementary School District to provide swimming lessons for first-graders.
“Drowning is one of the leading causes of death for children under the age of 6. We said, ‘Let’s teach kids to swim when they are still in school.’ We started that program and it is still going strong today,” Finck says.
The program expanded to other school districts. It provided swim lessons to nearly 700 children in 11 schools in Shasta County in 2026.
Childcare was also a big demand during that time and The Y responded in a big way, providing afterschool programs and summer day camps that served hundreds of north state school children.
From 1994 to 1999, The Y’s membership grew from 800 to 7,600. The organization serves everyone, including low-income residents and is proactive in trying to draw a diverse group of participants to its programs. No one gets turned away because they can’t afford the fees.
The Y’s membership reflects all of the community. For example, Special Olympics uses YMCA’s facilities. “People are seeing people different than themselves and interacting with them — and that’s a beautiful thing,” Finck says.
Looking back on his time with Shasta Family YMCA, he says the building expansions aren’t what mattered most.
“It was always the people. The Board, the staff, the Rotary Clubs that we worked with. I’ve always been really proud of the programs that we offered. I was most proud that I got to work with a lot of caring people who wanted to make a difference.”
Changes, Challenges, Opportunities
At first, the YMCA in Shasta County had roller skating parties, a church basketball league, high school clubs and teen conferences. As the decades rolled along there would be BMX bike races, guitar lessons, hip-hop classes, swim team, teen backpack trips, a skateboard ramp, a climbing wall and a journey to Thailand for high-schoolers. For adults, The Y has offered a healthy back class, diabetes prevention sessions, arthritis coping strategies, couples bridge, Masters Swimming, Zumba, yoga and Pickleball. Preschoolers have been able to join in tumbling sessions, story times and craft activities. YMCA has hosted egg hunts, fun runs, a rowing club and a chess club. It has provided family counseling, book clubs, grief groups, youth mentoring, tutoring, lifeguard skills and babysitter training.
Offerings are driven by interests and needs in the community. Classes and programs change as needs and interests evolve, dissolve or funding streams and partnerships change.
By the mid-2000s, Shasta Family YMCA was running Strong Kids campaigns to help local children participate in camps, swimming lessons and other activities. In 2009, with the Great Recession still squeezing the local economy, Shasta Family YMCA CEO Al Boren celebrated the Strong Kids campaign’s success in raising $152,000 — $55,000 more than the previous year. He had presented the campaign as a “character test” for the community — a test it passed.
Kristen Lyons was chosen as Shasta Family YMCA CEO in 2015. She had been with The Y since 2011 working in marketing and later as Health and Wellness Director. Lyons says a common misconception about The Y is that it is just a place to work out. “So many people think of it as swim and gym. They don’t know about the mission-based programs that we offer.”
That mission includes youth development, healthy living and social responsibility. The pillars provide lots of opportunities to do important work. Examples are Y Club, a drop-in program giving teens a safe place to be after school; a summer food program for youths; and Shasta STRIDE, a program providing life-skills training, fitness opportunities and other activities to adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
The Y’s varied programs, classes and exercise spaces are all points of connection.
“I see it as a central community hub,” Lyons says of The Y.
Lyons is grateful for the community’s support of the YMCA.
“We now have nearly 9,000 members. The number of members we have is extremely high for a community of our size,” she says. “We are a thriving Y.”
Running a large operation like Shasta Family YMCA is demanding. A big challenge Lyons faced after taking on the leadership role was deferred maintenance. The pools needed resurfacing and roofs were due for fixes or replacement. It also was time for new carpeting and resurfaced flooring.
“It’s expensive to maintain a facility,” Lyons says. “It continues to be a challenge.”
Community emergencies have been another test. In the summer of 2018, the Carr Fire burned through Shasta, Keswick and into Redding, destroying more than 1,000 homes. Shasta Family YMCA looked for ways to help. A drop-in camp was created to provide a safe place for children to be while parents went to the local assistance center and tended to other tasks. Free family memberships were provided to those who lost their homes.
In 2020, the Covid pandemic hit and the community went into lockdown. With its regular classes and programs stopped, Shasta Family YMCA did a quick pivot to offer child care to essential workers. It also provided story time and craft activities over Zoom for anyone in the community.
It wasn’t all challenging news in 2020. The McConnell Foundation purchased and then granted the former Wellgate Sports Club on Eureka Way to The Y. Valued at $1.35 million, the 24,000-square-foot building expanded YMCA operations on a visible corner of Redding. The Y gained a pool and lots of additional indoor space to increase programming for youth, families and seniors.
Lyons describes the donation as an incredible, transformational gift.
"Personally, I was honored that The McConnell Foundation trusted the Y, our board and me to be good stewards of such a significant gift,” she says. “It gave us the opportunity to grow and serve our community in ways we simply couldn’t have before.”
Named Y South, the building is home to Y Club for teens, a summer food program for children, and Shasta STRIDE. Senior fitness classes are held in one of the building’s large rooms. A Montessori preschool will open soon in the building. And construction is underway to remodel additional spaces for member programs.
“That gift helped make so much of our growth and impact possible, and we are still seeing its impact,” Lyons says.
The McConnell Foundation’s support of the YMCA goes back more than 35 years. It has given grants for playground equipment, computers, sports courts, building expansions and a range of programs.
“I think the reason the foundation has continually been so supportive is that The Y turns no one away based on inability to pay,” says Shannon Phillips, Chief Operating Officer of The McConnell Foundation. “There’s something very significant about that.”
The foundation appreciates the wide reach of the YMCA in welcoming people of all ages, all walks of life and from all socioeconomic backgrounds, she says. And the foundation likes the YMCA’s proactive approach of seeing a need and coming up with a creative way to address it.
“I think there would be a big hole in our community if The Y went away,” Phillips says.
Lyons is proud of The Y’s long history and the organization’s track record of responding to community challenges with a “what can we do” mindset. Looking forward, she says the goal is “to continue to expand opportunities and be sure we are sustainable into the future.”