Valparaiso Family YMCA 2014 Summer Events

2014-Valparaiso-Family-YMCA-Summer-CampsThe Valparaiso Family YMCA'S Summer Day Camp Program offers and enriching outdoor experience providing a safe environment in which children learn and grow. The supplemental STEM program will be designed to engage and inspire students, helping them increase educational achievement and develop critical skills such as problem solving, planning, analysis, and decision-making. The children will discover and explore in depth the various STEM subjects such as forensic science, oceanic exploration, wind energy, robotics, physics, engineering and math.

They will also enjoy fun activities developed from daily and weekly themes, as well as field trips. Our camp program is very flexible, in that you can sign your child up for one week or for all 10 weeks.

For further information about the STEM program click here or for Camp program/field trips click here.

Annual Campaign
This year's 2014 Annual Campaign goal is $205,000. We currently have reached 87% of our goal! Thank you to all who have pledged or donated to our cause of "Reaching New Heights"!

Donor cards are available in our lobby. For more information, please contact Donna Demko, Annual Giving Director, at 462-4185 x351

What's New in Aquatics
It is our pleasure to announce our new Junior Lifeguard Program this summer at the YMCA. A preparatory course designed for youths 11-14 years of age.

Statistics show that more than half of American adults do not know how to swim. Lets reduce these numbers with this generation by signing up for summer swim lessons.

Y Board Member: Ms. Jacki Stutzman
We'd like to thank Ms. Stutzman for her generous donation to the Valparaiso Family YMCA. Because of her generosity, the Child Care Summer Camp Program can now add the STEM Program to their curriculum.

Ms. Stutzman described how her contribution would enable the Y educators to use similar methods that she used in the classroom when she was a teacher, she said: "Tell me, and I'll forget; show me, and I'll remember; involve me, and I'll understand. This resonates with the STEM Program, enabling the kids to better understand how Science, Technology, Engineering and Math work in our world."

For the full story click here.

Green Thumb
The Green Thumb Project program is geared toward outdoor-education opportunities. The children in our Child Care program get to participate in all aspects of what it takes to have a garden.

For more information about this program click here.