Champaign County YMCA gets another big donation
The Champaign County YMCA is now $3 million short of its goal of raising money for a new facility after another large gift was donated to the project.
President and CEO of the YMCA Mark Johnson said the organization has received an anonymous gift of $500,000 toward the new YMCA and Larkin's Place at the YMCA.
The gift will be matched by private donors, for a total gift of $1 million.
That brings total donations to the project to $15 million; $18 million is needed for the new facility.
Johnson said the community continues to support the project.
- Mark Johnson talks about the donation to the YMCA.
The temperature on the YMCA thermometers around town and on North Prospect Avenue will be raised Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. to the $15 million mark.
The new facility is expected to open at the beginning of March.
MoreThe following is from a Wikipedia entry about the history of the "Y."
Challenge 21
In 1997, at the 14th World Council of YMCAs, the World Alliance of YMCAs adopted Challenge 21 as its modern-day statement of mission for the 21st century:
Affirming the Paris Basis adopted in 1855, as the ongoing foundation statement of the mission of the YMCA, at the threshold of the third millennium, we declare that the YMCA is a world-wide Christian, ecumenical, voluntary movement for women and men with special emphasis on and the genuine involvement of young people and that it seeks to share the Christian ideal of building a human community of justice with love, peace and reconciliation for the fullness of life for all creation.
Each member YMCA is therefore called to focus on certain challenges which will be prioritized according to its own context. These challenges which are an evolution of the Kampala Principles
- Sharing the good news of Jesus Christ and striving for spiritual, intellectual and physical well-being of individuals and wholeness of communities.
- Empowering all, especially young people and women to take increased responsibilities and assume leadership at all levels and working towards an equitable society.
- Advocating for and promoting the rights of women and upholding the rights of children.
- Fostering dialogue and partnership between people of different faiths and ideologies and recognizing the cultural identities of people and promoting cultural renewal.
- Committing to work in solidarity with the poor, dispossessed, uprooted people and oppressed racial, religious and ethnic minorities.
- Seeking to be mediators and reconcilers in situations of conflict and working for meaningful participation and advancement of people for their own self-determination.
- Defending God’s creation against all that would destroy it and preserving and protecting the earth’s resources for coming generations. To face these challenges, the YMCA will develop patterns of co-operation at all levels that enable self-sustenance and self-determination.
You can read more detail about this history here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YMCA
Having read this information, my question is how can the
Y" justify building a new facility in SW Champaign that removes if from the center of the community and thus much easier access for all citizens?
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Keep in mind that it is the Champaign County YMCA, not the City of Champaign YMCA or the City of Urbana YMCA. The center of the City does not make it easier access for residents of outlying communities or rural areas. If they wanted to they could build the thing in the middle of the country.
The bullet point of population density is C-U plus one has to consider modes of transportation available for the largest percentage of the concentrated population. Placing such an entity as the "Y" whether city or county in SW Champaign presumes access by car and if and when there is any frequest public transit to this location there will be no convenience associated with the mode. And the thought of children from any area, but near the new site safely riding a bicycle to the "Y" is an accident just waiting to happen. So the question becomes what is the population targeted to be served?
I agree with you completely, pattsi. Locating the Y out in the middle of nowhere might serve some fatcats notion of a glimmering facility for all to see, but it's clear that they want to keep the bulk of the population away from it and exclude access by youth entirely. That it practically mandates travel by automobile (and thus purchase of a car and all the expenses relating to that) is dreadful. There are plenty of abandoned and decaying properties in the downtown areas or in fringe areas that already have good bus service, and the YMCA would have been a much greater asset to the area by choosing one of them. Instead, they want to pave-over more prime agricultural land to build a new facility where few can readily access it, with the side-effects of stimulating yet more sprawling expansion and development. I rather suspect someone has a financial stake in seeing this sort of expansion....
Why didn't they choose Tolono or Rantoul or Homer? Because they wanted to be closer to CU. Just not close enough that anyone might try to use the facility other than their fatcat friends.
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