this program is funded with a grant from the pepsicola company it began as a Christian gentleman's club for young men who weren't quite gentlemen there almost a prayer group that allows young men to find other Pursuits other than gambling or drinking or women it became part of the nation's fabric Sports to the YMCA Were Meant To Be Active that's why they invented basketball and volleyball to be able to come meet together with other young people under the YMCA Banner that was a quite a thing in at that time behind a bob wire for 150 years the young men's Christian Association has shaped and been shaped by America the why didn't lead marches but everybody who led the marches was trained in the Y the YMCA gave me the opportunity to learn the game in a structured setting with coaches who cared about you today the YMCA is the largest not for-profit organization in the country offering more than 18 million members a place to work out hang out and find a helping hand the YMCA has lasted for 150 years for a definite reason and that is they've been able to change along with [Music] [Applause] [Music] America Osman Osman is a 46-year-old Somalian immigrant he's also the face of today's YMCA in May 1996 osban and his family were relocated from a refugee camp in Kenya to Houston Texas there Osman was introduced to YMCA International Services whose case workers help refugees navigate their new and unfamiliar world the YMCA must show this person how to use this stuff how to use the hot water how to use everything through the wise cultural orientation program Osman was shown how to interview for a job in the United States he adapted so quickly to his new life that by the end of the year the Y had offered him a job helping other refugees through the confusing process of resettling in America I know what they need because I have been through the so uh I believe that I can help them better for the YMCA Osman ozman is a new character in a familiar story since 18 51 the American y has helped newcomers get their bearings in the big city back then the migrants were white Protestant men leaving the farm for the factory at the onset of the Industrial Revolution today they're just as often immigrants like Osman newly arrived in the US in search of opportunity it's just one example of how over the past Century and a half the Y has managed to change with the times without ever losing losing its identity the young men's Christian Association was founded in London in 1844 by a 20-year-old sales assistant in a dry goods store George Williams a recent arrival in the city Williams was at once appalled by its horrific living conditions and attracted to its many Temptations he's self admitted a man of Vice he is swearing he is drinking he is carousing and he knows that's not good for himself uh and for his spiritual uh Health on June 6th 1844 Williams gathered a group of young men for prayer and bible study in a room above the shop where he worked with that the YMCA was born there a meeting group that allows young men to come together and celebrate and and practice a a version of Christianity that they thought was important George williamss idea caught on quickly within a gear the Y was offering public lectures and hosting Sunday afternoon tea Gatherings for new recruits it tried to provide a wholesome environment so that these young men who were now removed from their families and from the churches would not end up in taverns or in houses of ill repute in 1851 during a trip to London a retired Boston sea captain named Thomas Sullivan heard about the YMCA for Sullivan who was equal parts Adventurer and evangelist the Y offered a way to set young men on the path to Christianity before they were corrupted by the city by the time he's 33 he's been Shipwrecked off the coast of Antarctica he's been attacked by Pirates he's made a fortune and lost it and here he is in his 50s in Boston thinking boy there's got to be something I can do for my fellow sailor Seaman all across the world on December 29th 1851 Sullivan and six friends held the first American YMCA meeting in the Old South Church in Boston he entered UC the organization as a social group that shall meet the young stranger as he enters our city take him by the hand and in every way throw around him good influences you have a a young man who's probably a farm hand perhaps or has one skill he moves from uh the farm into the city he doesn't have television to explain what the city's about so he has to find a mechanism for survival and one of them is the YMCA Sullivan's new organization proved a resounding success within just 3 years nearly 50 YMCAs had opened in cities across the country members paid a dollar a year or $20 for a lifetime membership activities included prayer meetings Bible classes and religious lectures although each knew why was independent with a constitution of its own most chose to follow the rules established by Thomas Sullivan among these rules young men who joined were required to be members of a Protestant church church that didn't include Catholics that didn't include any other religious factions outside of the Christianity but from their standpoint in their eyes they were being inclusionary they were bringing people together the YMCA was pretty positive that its values what it was trying to promote was good was in the best interests of America in the best interests of religion in the best interests of the world as the YMCA flourished meetings moved from churches and rened spaces into buildings of their own the first of which was built in Baltimore in 1859 as the 19th century rolled on the steam train followed the frontier Westward and brought the YMCA with it the railroad wise as they were called offered workers Bible classes lectures good meals and hot showers railroad erand essentially support the Y because it gives their employees something to do other than these other things that obviously don't make a very productive worker in the morning the spread of the railroad wise highlighted the remarkable versatility of George Williams creation the YMCA was becoming many things to many people and not just young white Protestant men women were admitted as members as early as 1859 though their numbers remained small until after World War II Native Americans founded more than two dozen wi's including a y which claimed relatives of Sitting Bull as members by the late 1800s some wise were even beginning to encourage Catholics and Jews to participate though not yet to join it goes out and it sets up educational programs for immigrants Catholic and Jewish immigrants the desire is to quote unquote americanize The Immigrant with more than 6,000 members in over 40 countries the YMCA had already become an its first half century one of the most successful voluntary organizations in the world but it was only just beginning to flex its muscles the coming decades would reveal that it was exercise not evangelism that would weave the why into the everyday lives of millions of Americans America's Haven the YMCA at 150 will continue in a moment [Music] I have a dream one day na will before he became an Olympic gold medalist an NBA champion or a United States Senator Bill Bradley was just a scrawny kid shooting hoops at the local y I began playing basketball in a YMCA in Crystal City Missouri every Saturday morning at 9:00 uh fourth graders would come to the local high school gym where we would play and that was my first competition Bradley always stood Head and Shoulders above his teammates but height alone wasn't enough to send him on the path to basketball stardom the YMC gave me the opportunity to learn the game in structured setting with coaches who cared about you today Bill Bradley's legendary career is immortalized here at the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield Massachusetts the museum is a shrine to America's most popular team sport and the best seat in the house belongs to the man who started it all the most influential YMCA instructor in history James naith in 1891 naith was a firste fiz head teacher at the YMCA training College in Springfield though the Y would go on to build more than 20 colleges Springfield was its Flagship the only School in the country devoted to physical education instruction its teachers included such pioner ing sports figures as college football legends Amos Alonzo stag and n rockney a huge proportion of college coaches and physical Educators in the early part of the 20th century were graduates of Springfield College I think you can really say that it had a huge impact on American Education that winter nay Smith was assigned an especially tough class a rough and tumble group of young men bored with the school's usual slate of indoor activities tumbling leap frog and the game called drop the handkerchief nay Smith's boss athletic director Luther Gulick challenged him to come up with a new game one that would capture the students interest and keep them fit through the long winter months the original purpose of the game was to give unruly students something to do that was organized that they could put their energies into and therefore would be less unruly but Gulick also had a higher purpose in mind a sport that would reinforce the YMCA's values producing better young men not just better athletes he didn't want a game that was solitary like individual exercise he didn't want a game that was too rough and tumble that would encourage violent tendencies in people he wanted a game that would promote um teamwork and would promote what he felt was Christian character gulick's views were shaped by a new movement that had only recently taken hold at the Y it was called muscular Christianity the belief that both a strong mind and a strong body were necessary for spiritual growth muscular Christianity dramatically transformed the why placing recreational exercise at the heart of the organization's Mission it even inspired Luther gullick to design the wise now familiar logo an inverted red triangle symbolizing a balance between between mind body and spirit in the winter of 1891 gulig challenged James naith to turn muscular Christianity into a new game it took the 30-year-old Canadian a while to hit on a formula that was both spirited and safe and naith experiments with everything he takes a little bit of soccer a little bit of football and he keeps putting them together and people keep getting hurt finally he came up with something entirely new a ball game built around passing where tackling would be illegal and points would be scored by tossing the ball up into a goal which he thought would be a wooden box he's going around and asking the janitors and maintenance men and and one of them pulls out a peach basket and nay Smith says well that'll do I guess nay Smith took the peach basket and hung it from the overhead running track in the gym 10 ft above the floor he took another and nailed it up across the way in mid December 1891 two nine-man teams squared off against against each other in history's first basketball game the game lasted 30 minutes the final score 1 to nothing the YMCA's new game was an instant sensation nay Smith students became basketball evangelists taking the game home with them on Christmas break and eventually to other YMCAs when they graduated Nate Smith himself only played twice he was apparently too rough and fouled too often to be any good he would however go on to become the first basketball coach at the University of Kansas to this day the inventor of basketball Remains the only coach in the school's history with a losing record nay Smith's creation has come a long way since 1891 backboards were added early on to keep Spectators from swiping the ball then came foul shots dribbling and eventually the 200 reverse Jam yet while basketball may have quickly shed the gentlemanly qualities its inventor hoped to encourage it's never lost its uniquely American Spirit balance between individuality and Collective responsibility is really what the essence of America is in a fundamental sense baseball's the derivation of cricket football's the derivation of rugby but basketball is the true American game basketball wasn't the only sport to be invented at the YMC in 1895 nay Smith's friend William Morgan a director at the Holy Oak Massachusetts why came up with a less strenuous game a way of getting older more sedentary men out onto the court Morgan named his new sport minet since it was based on a game brought from India called Mitten but that didn't last long minet sounded far too ladylike for the manly folk at the YMCA so the the name was changed today today it's known by a more familiar name volleyball sports to the YMCA Were Meant To Be Active that's why they invented basketball and volleyball not so people could watch these Sports from a distance while they drank beer and ate chips but instead so that people could participate in those Sports and learn the virtues of sportsmanship along with inventing new sports the YMCA also introduced Revolutionary Ways of teaching old ones in 1909 G Corson an instructor at the Detroit y offered the country's first group swimming lessons since then millions of Americans have benefited from corson's method including triathlete Heidi muser Heidi learned to swim as a young girl here at the Leaning Tower Y in Niles Illinois in 1997 she met Mark landc a personal trainer at the Y who agreed to help get her in shape for competition got it okay less than a year later in her hometown of Chicago ID completed a Sprint distance Triathlon in just over 2 hours it was a performance made all the more remarkable by the fact that Heidi has been blind since birth in training and in races her coach swims beside her calling out Directions They Ride in Tandem and when they run they hold an elastic band between them in September 1999 Heidi made history at the world Triathlon championships in Montreal where she became the first blind athlete to compete in an international Triathlon on the same course as cited athletes by making play a serious Pursuit the YMCA helped change the way America and the world stayed fit but in the first half of the 20th century the terror of War would twice turn the YMCA's attention from the athletic field to the battlefield where the Y would bring relief in ways large and small to millions of American servicemen America's Haven the YMCA at50 we'll continue in a [Music] moment [Music] 101 okay it's thir Thursday night at the Fireside Inn near Syracuse New York couples Glide across the dance floor as the band plays When the Saints Go Marching In though everyone in the band loves playing this music for 85-year-old trombone player Don waffle it has a very special significance Waffle's love of music was fostered during the darkest days of his life the days he spent in a German prisoner of war camp during World War II on December 10th 1942 waffle a 26-year-old second Lieutenant fighting in Tunisia was captured by the Nazis he ended up in olog 64 a German p camp in Poland there he and his follow prisoners were given the bare necessities black bread thin soup and little else the men were left to brood over their captivity getting captured is a blow to your psyche it's a blow to your pride it's a blow to your PR Prestige if you don't have something to do in a camp and all you can do is sit there and recriminate in the middle of the night you're saying over and over again how did I get here how did I screw it up after a few months though that situation changed with the arrival of a volunteer from the YMCA during the second world war the YMCA and the Red Cross were the primary International agencies allowed into the German P camps by mid 1943 Henry Soderberg a Swedish representative of the YMCA began to visit olog 64 regularly to take the P's requests there were very few things that we wanted that they didn't provide uh tunnel digging equipment was not amongst them they did not give those to us uh but the most everything else that we needed uh they came to Don waffle the most important shipment was the one that brought sheet music and instruments back home he'd been an amateur musician and he'd even even managed to acquire a trombone before being sent to olog 64 the YMCA outfitted his fellow prisoners with their own instruments and soon this nuty prison camp had a band of its own we're a long ways from home and one of the things that could bring you back to normal was the the hit songs of the time and they shut your eyes and you can think you're back there now or if we play a ballad you could say some guy sit in the back row said yeah that was the favorite song I danced with at the senior ball with my girl the music played by Don's band eventually made its way back to the American Airwaves via recordings made by representative Soderberg let us now listen to some music produced in off log 64 B Ranken and his Swing Orchestra will now play You Made Me Love You these broadcasts gave American audiences a sense of life in the camp and gave PS a chance to send messages to loved ones this is Lieutenant Jack Carpenter from capado Missouri on behalf of the officers here from Missouri I wish to send greetings to our friends and family we think of you constantly and pray for our Speedy reunion chin up and don't worry throughout the war the YMCA truck showed up periodically with stationery sports equipment and even supplies to create customs and sets for dramatic performances they were maybe a little bit better than the senior play in high school but the some of the fellas took it real serious uh we had a lot of fun taking guys and making them look like gals and that was all that was an art and some fellas were a lot prettier than others most importantly the YMCA shipments reminded PS that they had not been forgotten the why was spending money that American citizens back home had given them they made it very clear to us that these things that the Y and the Red Cross gave us was a reflection of the car of the people back home for the YMCA reaching out to soldiers in need was nothing new more than 5,000 y volunteers had worked the battlefields hospitals and P camps of the Civil War including poet Walt Whitman they're actually performing surgery in some cases they're providing nursing servic they're writing letters for the soldiers many who of course are illiterate uh they're providing stamps but most importantly I think to in the federal side is they're listing the dead and they're providing a list of all the Fallen victims which is so important to the families back home who probably have very little word as to what's happening to their young men the wise work in the Civil War marked the beginning of its tradition of service on the [Music] battlefield as soon as America entered World War War One the YMCA again leapt into action at the time the General Secretary of the national YMCA John RM was an adviser to President woodro Wilson who often looked to him for advice on International matters on April 6th 1917 the very day the US declared war M sent a telegram to Wilson offering the full service of the YMCA the wise relief work would come to include everything from serving hot coco to soldiers to raising money for much needed supplies the YMCA launches a fundraising drive under M's leadership which eventually Garners $200 million more than $200 million nearly 26,000 YMCA workers ran 1,500 canteens for the boys overseas as well as 4,000 temporary Huts for recreation and religious Services the Y volunteers many of whom were women coordinated massive shipments of preserves socks and even baseball bets and when German OTS made shipping Goods across the Atlantic too risky the whyb built factories in Europe including 44 cookie and Candy plants to supply Soldiers with sweets but the wise efforts were not without their critics unlike other relief groups the why charged soldiers for cigarettes a fact that led to accusations of War profiteering the wise response was that they were simply trying to cover the enormous costs of their wide-ranging relief efforts and that any money left over went into an educational fund for returning troops the Forerunner it would turn out of the GI Bill some soldiers also complained that the Y was mixing its religious Mission with its relief Mission the troops accused YMCA secretaries of uh trying to keep us from whing women in song the YMCA in the words of one leader wanted to prevent World War I from becoming a venial disease-ridden Festival criticism of the why LED not just to changes in its War relief efforts but to changes in the why itself World War I has a very secularizing effect on the YMC they start out the war trying hard to win converts to Christ by the end of the war they're no longer doing that and after the war this continues indeed in 1933 the YMCA would officially abandon its Protestant Evangelical Mission with the outbreak of World War II the Y would once again send its volunteers to the front lines along with other volunteer groups it helped found the United service organizations for war relief work better known as The Uso the wise humanitarian efforts in World War II would serve 6 million servicemen in more than 36 countries and in 1946 ym MCA General Secretary John Mt would be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize but the Y wasn't just working overseas its wartime assistance was also needed on the American Home Front sometimes even why volunteers themselves were among those in need in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th 1941 anti-japanese sentiment swept the United States David tatsuno his wife father and children were among over 110,000 Japanese Americans on the west coast who were forced to evacuate their homes and relocate to internment camps after closing the family dry goods store in San Francisco the tatsuno found themselves confined to a camp in topaz Utah tatsuno was able to sneak an 8mm camera into the camp these images provide a rare look behind find the barbed wire just imagine you have to leave your home you have to leave uh your pets behind uh and then you know just and going to a Barrack you know it's boring but they had to make the best of it many of the topaz attorneys including David tatsuno had been members and employees of a YMCA in San Francisco a y started by Japanese Americans to provide services for neighborhood residents and new immigrants believing their best hope for eventual release was to show that they were Model American citizens the interes put their why experience to work they organized clubs and recreational activities for the other interes they taught classes and established a YMCA Camp to be able to come meet together with other young people under the YMCA banner and have their own uh meeting that's that was a quite a thing in at that time behind the Bob wire it meant a lot it uh filled a big hole in their life T Sono believes that his years at the Y gave him an advantage over some of the others in the camp sure you could sit down and cry as you were behind Bob why we have to leave our homes and we have to leave our business but that doesn't get you any place but the Christian philosophy is to do what you can whever you go you see no matter what and that's what we try to do and to the why the philosophy helped in the years that followed World War II the YMCA would find itself on the front lines of another battle this one at home the Y would come to play a paradoxical role in America's struggle to confront its greatest demon racial inequality America's Haven the YMCA at 150 will continue in a moment [Music] as a civil rights Crusader us Congressman ambassador to the United Nations and two-term mayor of Atlanta Andrew Young has helped shape modern American history and the YMCA helped shape Andrew Young the way we used to play football was just about as rough as anything I did I mean any beating I got in the civil rights mve as a child growing up in New Orleans young spent much of his time at the dryads YMCA there were no playgrounds in his neighborhood no public resources at all for young black children when I went to the Y it was like going to heaven I learned to play table tennis shoot pool uh swim play basketball run uh read speak uh almost everything cuss clown uh the YMCA was a great character developer his experience was a common one the product of an America where segregation created terrible racial inequalities while at the same time nurturing a powerful sense of African-American Community but the why even though it was a segregated why inside the walls of that why all men will created equal and you had to respect everybody you got a chance to compete with everybody like Andrew Young Martin Luther King Jr and many other civil rights leaders spent their early years at black YMCAs and Y camps throughout to South ironically these segregated wise helped nurture the movement that would destroy legal segregation transforming America and the why itself in the process a new philosophy was born of the Negro from its Inception the YMCA reflected the problems and paradoxes of race in America denied access to White institutions black Americans were forced to create their own including YMCAs the first of these so-called colored wise was established in 1853 by Anthony Bowen a former slave in Washington DC these very early YMCA efforts by African-Americans even the ones that emerged in the aftermath of the Civil War some of those were very short LIF they consisted of gatherings in the living rooms maybe of one individual it wasn't until 1890 that the YMCA hired its first secretary in charge of colored work 27-year-old William Hunton though the colored wise remained separate and unequal Hunton and his associate Jesse Morland invigorated the wise role in African-American communities around the country like many blacks at the time Morland and Hunton took an accommodationist approach to segregation they felt that earning the respect of whites would in time earn them equality as well African-Americans in the YMCA said what we need to do is we need to stay within the system and not challenge segregation in the YMC however we can use the system to which we've accommodated in order to train young men to become the Future Leaders of our race their efforts were given a boost by a Jewish businessman and philanthropist named Julius Rosenwald Rosenwald had a mast of Fortune as the president of Sears robu and Company starting in 1910 Rosenwald offered matching funds to the black wise mobilizing black communities Across the Nation to raise money for new buildings like this one in Chicago Julius rosenal is a Jewish white man who gives to a black Christian cause and in part it was because Julius Rosenwald uh had experienced anti-Semitism with Rosen wald's help 24 new black wise were built over the next 10 years by mid-century there were nearly a hundred around the country in 1946 the national YMCA began unofficially urging local Affiliates to desegregate yet the way the why was structured at the time there was little the national office could do to force white Southern branches to obey within the walls of the black wise however a new generation of leaders was coming of edge the Y was one of the very important institutions in the foundation of the Civil Rights Movement um because it was the place where potential leaders develop skills at the Butler Street Y in Atlanta young black Southerners like Martin Luther King Jr Ralph ABY and Andrew Young could congregate free from the limitations of a society that treated them as second class citizens you could say anything in the why and speech was not sens of in the why uh people could meet black and white together in the W in the early years of the Civil Rights Movement black y sometimes played host to planning sessions for stins and other protests but as black churches took the lead in the fight against segregation the black wise faded into the background the why why was sort of a hidden hand uh the why never made pronouncements the why didn't lead marches but everybody who led the Marchers was trained in the Y for Andrew Young and other black leaders the why remained a safe haven in a tumultuous era that was our our family time whenever we were home uh together one of the things that uh Dr King would always suggest is why don't we go to thew for family night for a family night swim it would take more than a decade of struggle but as landmarks like the Civil Rights Act became law segregation gradually fell by the wayside by the mid-60s the social Revolution the why helped nurture finally forced the why itself to change in 1967 after More Than A Century of tacitly accepted racial separation the national board formally banned discrimination on the basis of race these shifts were just the beginning of a much broader transformation in how Americans lived their lives in time a changing Society along with one infuriatingly catchy song Would challenge the Y to redefine its role and remake its image YCA America's Haven the YMCA at 150 will continue in a moment in 1978 the Village People a campy disco Act made up of six costumed singers were at the height of their career they were looking for one more song to complete their new album Cruisin when the group's frenchorn producer had a brainstorm he returned to the studio and he was excited about initials on the side of a building that he saw and he asked us uh in his uh French accent Sher kiss emca now we had never heard that and we asked them you know what what is that and he said YMCA and so we told him it means young man's Christian Association and he said great we're going to do a song we looked at each other like yeah right and immediately he just went young man and right there they wrote in 10 minutes the song was released as a single that October and instantly became a top 10 hit on J January 6th 1979 the Village People appeared on Dick Clark's American band stand before we did the show Dick Clark said to us I have a surprise for you guys the dancers on American bandand showed us the arm movements YMCA so we incorporated it in the show the spur of the moment moves became a national dance craze yet for the YMCA itself the attention was not entirely welcome the song exposed a subculture of the why that most people didn't even know existed throughout its history the Y had offered shelter and guidance for young men in doing so it had inadvertently provided a safe haven for homosexual men to meet discreetly on the surface the lyrics of YMCA sounded like an innocent celebration of the wise services but to those who understood the double on tandr of their previous hits the lyrics were interpreted as an expression of the wise covert history worried about the song's impact on its image the national YMCA considered trying to block its release suddenly there was a song out there capitalizing on on the on the name and so you know they threatened with like you have to stop we don't want you to do this in the end the Y backed down and the song proved far more durable than the controversy over the next two decades it would become a perennial favorite at ballparks weddings and retro nightclubs making the why a fixture on the pop culture landscape it's essentially worth a bazillion dollars of brand recognition for the YMCA and its name is is in every Sports Stadium every every little kid can do the YMCA it's a phenomenal uh marketing tool for the YMCA's Mission even before the Village People pushed it into the spotlight the YMCA was facing a profound Challenge from a changing America by the mid 1970s American cities were rapidly losing population to the suburbs as the needs of the communities were shifting memberships and funding in YMCA facilities in larger cities were decreasing the Suburban YMCA seem to have all the money they had the membership they were doing very well indeed the urban YMCAs on the other hand many of them were declining very quickly in response they accelerated a process the why had started in the wake of World War II shifting their primary focus from the needs of young men to the needs of families they set up um daycare centers they set up drug rehab programs they open up their basketball courts to Urban Youth they open up their pools to Urban Youth they really do become I think community centers for um the inner city welcome to the new City Y just Northwest of downtown Chicago built in 1981 it was specifically created to serve two very different urban communities worlds that border one another but whose people rarely mix only a block to the north is the mostly white upper middle class neighborhood of Lincoln Park from the time new city opened members from this part of town have sought out the wise traditional offerings for example swimming and Athletics much closer to the Y however is Cabrini Green the predominantly black public housing project that has long been a national symbol of urban despair Cabrini residence have turned to New City as a safe haven a place not just to play sports but also to find essential Family Services like job training and affordable child care I can do it too aad face 39-year-old single mother rosalba Cruz is one new city member who has taken advantage of this when her daughter Alexa was born in 1991 Ros Alba expected to have a close-knit community of friends and relatives available to help take care of her but she quickly found raising a child much different in Chicago than in her native Mexico in our country is like everybody helps everybody and we are close always when I move here I find I found out that everybody works most of the time kids are alone in 1994 Ros Alba heard about the daycare center at the new City Y with 3-year-old Alexa Ino she nervously stopped by one day to check it out they hardly could understand my broken English but they understood what I want and they they make me feel like they care for my baby even though they couldn't talk so well with me Alexa now n has thrived at New City she's currently a member of the swim team there she also gets tutored once a week in math a subject in which she's gone from getting an F to getting the best grade in her fifth grade class meanwhile thanks to the programs at New City Alexa's mother has had the time to return to college to get a degree in social work I couldn't really say what my life would be without the why it's is part of my life part of my daughter's life having the YMCA in the place it is is been a great thing from daycare centers to gymnastics from computer classes to water aerobics the American YMCA has certainly taken on a new look since Thomas Sullivan founded it 150 years ago an organization that was once devoted to helping white Protestant men now serves nearly 18 million men women boys and girls of every race and religion it's still one of the basic institutions in American life that affirms and protects the American Family it creates places where young people can come into contact with mentors who give them encouragement to allow their spirits to soar and to develop the skills that otherwise might not have been developed had they not had it started at the YMCA clear to the YMCA is a very Dynamic organization that changes with the times successfully I have no doubt that it will continue to do so that it will continue to change along with America and by so changing remain a very important part of the American Social [Music] Scene [Music] this program is funded with a grant from the pepsicola company e e e e e e e e e e e e e