Champions of Change Blog

Preventing Youth Violence

Posted by Bob Gilbertson on June 13, 2013 at 10:48 AM EDT

Bob Gilbertson is being honored as a White House Champion of Change for his leadership and commitment to the ideals of the YMCA.

The Seattle Y Youth Violence Initiative was initially launched in 2011, in partnership with the City of Seattle, the YMCA of a Greater Seattle’s Alive and Free Street Outreach Program, A Better Seattle, law enforcement and other local community providers.

The Youth Violence Initiative is designed to create a culture of safety and hope for at-risk youth. This collaboration between street outreach workers (from the Y’s Alive and Free Program), philanthropists, corporations, law enforcement and community groups is focused on strategies to reduce youth violence and build healthy communities in Seattle and surrounding areas. Because of the successful outcomes of the Seattle Initiative, efforts to replicate the model have begun in five other municipalities in the surrounding area, including Renton, Auburn, Tukwila, Kent and SeaTac, where mayors and police chiefs have all committed to help eradicate youth violence in their cities. The Youth Violence Initiative also has been able to demonstrate a unique model of funding by maximizing blended revenue sources from the local cities, the state, and federal government, as well as the local philanthropic community. A key partner in the Youth Violence Initiative is a Better Seattle, founded by Seattle Seahawks coach, Pete Carroll. A Better Seattle provides support and community linkage to the Youth Violence Initiative.

The Y’s street outreach workers connect high risk kids, who have been affected by violence and/or gang activity, to positive support systems and relevant services that help them set and reach positive goals.

The Y’s Alive & Free Street Outreach is actively reducing retaliatory violence and recidivism rates in juvenile offenders. The Y is deeply grateful to all of our partners, including Pete Carroll and the Seahawks for their inspiration and leadership. We are honored to receive acknowledgement as Champions of Change.

Bob Gilbertson is the President and CEO of the YMCA of Greater Seattle.

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A Unique Approach to Healthy Communities

Posted by John Urban on June 13, 2013 at 10:42 AM EDT

John Urban is being honored as a White House Champion of Change for his leadership and commitment to the ideals of the YMCA.

Greater Rochester Health Foundation is honored to be recognized as a Champion of Change, and thanks to the YMCA of Greater Rochester for the nomination for this prestigious award.

The Health Foundation was created in 2006 with a clear mission: to improve the health status of all residents of the Greater Rochester community (nine counties) including people whose unique health care needs have not been met because of race, ethnicity or income. Our definition of health is broad: health is about far more than health care, and health disparities are evident in all areas of health status, particularly in urban and rural areas.

We think of our role as “finding, funding and measuring.” We take a strategic approach to uncovering the community’s most pressing health issues, invite skilled partners to implement outcome-focused programs to address the problems, and then fund professional evaluators to work with grantees to measure their results. Through this process we have had the privilege of working with many champions.

One of the most important of these local champions is the YMCA of Greater Rochester, focused on reversing childhood obesity in order to increase the number of urban children at a healthy weight. In a four-pronged 10-year strategy, Be A Healthy Hero 5∙2∙1∙0, pediatricians, schools, child care providers, families, street teams, local government and community organizations have supported the cause of eating right and being active. Literally thousands of the area’s “little champions” know the 5∙2∙1∙0 jingle by heart.

Our neighborhood health status improvement initiative supports asset-based, resident-driven efforts to improve the physical, social and economic health of their communities. Neighborhood champions build upon the many strengths of their neighbors, local businesses and organizations to improve the “health” of their community in the way they have defined it. Improving health might include reversing open air drug markets, razing unsafe buildings and repurposing empty lots into community gardens and playgrounds, offering GED classes and providing micro loans for small businesses. No single neighborhood’s approach is like another’s.

Within the medical community, many work to champion the delivery of cost-effective, accessible, high-quality health care. They have developed medical innovations, identified and treated depression, initiated protocols to control hypertension and treat stroke, saved a federally qualified health center through an effective merger, and some, including the YMCA, have implemented evidence-based diabetes prevention programs.

It has been our special good fortune to partner with the YMCA of Greater Rochester since the inception of the Health Foundation.

John Urban is the President and CEO of the Greater Rochester Health Foundation.

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Helping Kids Succeed

Posted by Peggy Brown on June 13, 2013 at 10:36 AM EDT

Peggy Brown is being honored as a White House Champion of Change for her leadership and commitment to the ideals of the YMCA.

I always wanted to be a teacher and decided early on that I would rather work with younger children – they accept you as yourself as long as you give them love and affection.

I began my career working in the suburbs, but then had an opportunity to work at Christ Child which was in the inner city. The differences between the two really struck me. The kids in the city really needed me more. They needed more hugs. They needed someone to look out for them. I just knew it was where I needed to be.

I was a teacher at Christ Child from 1972 until 1992 when I became the director of the program. At this point, I wanted to be an educational thought leader and help other teachers do their jobs and provide a strong foundation for the young people we care for to grow up to be positive citizens.

When the Y took over the center in 1994, it was welcome. The Y’s philosophy of caring for the whole child and teaching the values of respect, honesty, caring and responsibility were in line with my approach. In our community, the parents don’t always teach these principles, so it’s or job to make sure they learn them early and help them put them to work in their own lives. This is the most important thing we can teach.

My greatest hope is that the children that come through our doors become successful, happy and healthy citizens. It doesn’t matter what they do, as long as they are applying those values that we taught them in their own lives. I know we’ve done our job when my former students bring their own kids to me so that I can care for them as well. This makes me feel so good that they put their trust in me. Or when invite me to milestones such as high school graduations. It’s then that I know I’m doing my job. There certainly is no prouder moment for me than to see these kids succeed.

Peggy Brown is the Director of Early Childhood Education at the YMCA of Greater Cincinnati.

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Welcoming New Americans

Posted by Dr. William Won-Kyu Lee on June 13, 2013 at 10:25 AM EDT

Dr. William Lee is being honored as a White House Champion of Change for his leadership and commitment to the ideals of the YMCA.

I am humbled and honored to accept the Champions Award on behalf of the YMCA of Greater New York. I have always believed in the power of volunteers to make change in our communities. As a volunteer and a Board member, I have had the opportunity to see good ideas, nurtured by volunteers, grow into powerful life changing opportunities for thousands of people.

Many years ago, as an immigrant to the USA, my wife and I experienced the challenges shared by millions of others. With the help of other immigrant volunteers we were able to create a YMCA program that provided educational and cultural support targeted to newly arrived Koreans.

I was very proud that the YMCA built the city-wide New Americans Welcome Center program using many aspects of that program as a model. The New American Welcome Centers of the

YMCA of Greater New York addresses a widening service gap for the city’s fast-growing immigrant populations.

Through six centers, scores of satellite locations and more than 130 partnerships citywide, the YMCA offers coordinated multilingual resources, referrals and services that helped more than 17,000 individuals and families achieve literacy, high school graduation and college placement, citizenship, cultural competence and self-sufficiency in 2012.

I am also proud that the program is offered free to all participants. Augmenting YMCA support, the program has attracted public funding and has a growing support among private donors and foundations.

1n 2012 the YMCA commissioned an Economic Impact Study by a third party research firm that used proven research methodology to determine some of the far reaching impacts of YMCA programs. Their results demonstrated that based on the success rate of over 62% of students moving to higher levels of English proficiency, $72,000,000 was added to the collective lifetime earnings of the students! Talk about impact!

Also a testament to our success, one of our New Americans Welcome Centers won the NYC Mayor’s Dreamer Award for providing literacy, citizenship and employment readiness to residents of upper Manhattan and the Bronx.

As much as I have supported this program and the many other good programs of the YMCA, I am humbled to also know that this program attracts over 95 volunteers each year that assist with setting policy, coordinating referrals, and countless hours of teaching English to eager new Americans.

Dr. William Lee is a YMCA of Greater New York Board member and has helped develop the YMCA New American Program.

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Working for Healthier Communities

Posted by Risa Lavizzo-Mourey on June 13, 2013 at 10:13 AM EDT

Risa Lavizzo-Mourey is being honored as a White House Champion of Change for her leadership and commitment to the ideals of the YMCA.

Every year when summer rolls around, I remember the great times my brother and I had at the Y summer camp that we attended near Seattle. Hiking, swimming, and reconnecting with our camp buddies was something we looked forward to every season.

That was a long time ago, but for thousands of youngsters across America the Y still stands for healthy fun and personal development. Kids can learn to swim and get help with homework at the same place. They can join a Y sports team, or take a class in art. And, of course, they can go to camp. At the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, we believe that good health begins where we live, work, learn and play, and for more than 160 years the Y has manifested that philosophy.

In far too many neighborhoods, especially in urban areas, getting kids healthy and keeping them from getting obese is a daily challenge. There often are no grocery stores or supermarkets for miles around. Corner stores and fast food joints rarely offer fresh fruits and vegetables. Parents are too frightened to let their kids walk to school, bike, or visit parks and playgrounds, if they even exist.

It’s no wonder that over the past 20 years childhood obesity has become a serious health problem across our nation, threatening the futures of our young, our economy, the stability of our health care system, and even our national security.

In 2007, RWJF committed $500 million toward reversing the childhood obesity epidemic with the aim of getting government, businesses, organizations, and communities to work together to serve nutritious foods in schools, create places where children can safely play before, during, and after school, bring healthy, affordable foods into neighborhoods, and limit kids’ exposure to unhealthy marketing messages.

Everyone has a role to play in reversing the childhood obesity epidemic: from members of Congress to industry leaders; from child care providers to individual parents and children. And I want to congratulate the Y for stepping up in a significant way.

Through its Pioneering Healthy Communities Initiative, the Y has inspired more than 3,900 healthy changes in the programs it operates and the communities it serves. Its targeted efforts, along with comprehensive action taken by other organizations working for the same goal, have paid off. The steep upward climb of childhood obesity rates has stopped. And in several communities, like Philadelphia, Baldwin Park, Calif., and Kearney, Neb., we’re actually seeing the first signs of reversing the epidemic.

But we still have a long way to go. African Americans, Latinos, and children in lower-income communities are still at risk of being left behind, and that’s an outcome we cannot accept. The good news is that Y’s exist in every kind of neighborhood, and we are proud to be partnering with them to keep the momentum moving in the right direction.

The progress we’ve seen already gives me confidence that, by working together, we will achieve our goal of building a healthier America sooner rather than later.

Risa Lavizzo-Mourey is President and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF).

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High Achievers

Posted by JoAnn Price on June 13, 2013 at 9:56 AM EDT

JoAnn Price is being honored as a White House Champion of Change for her leadership and commitment to the ideals of the YMCA.

I am honored to be thought of as a “Champion of Change” and thank President Obama for recognizing ordinary citizens, like myself, for doing what we, as citizens, are obligated to do. One’s civic involvement is not done for recognition or personal gain; it is done to contribute to a better community, city, state and nation. I am blessed to have been surrounded by a dedicated group of “caring citizens” who believe our children have value, can all learn, and must be supported in order to reach their fullest potential. Our children are the future, and our society will rise or fall depending upon how well we support and encourage them.

The YMCA of Greater Hartford (GHYMCA) supports this important work. The GHYMCA has a longstanding commitment to: “putting a caring adult in the presence of every child; being good stewards of the resources entrusted to it; and working, in partnership with others, to eliminate the disparities in health and education.” I am pleased to volunteer for an organization committed to servant leadership. I am intimately involved in the work of the GHYMCA as a policy volunteer at the corporate and community level, as a financial contributor, and as an active participant in our Parent and Youth Achievers Program. Our YMCA Association serves 117,000 individuals, 65,000 of whom are children, in the rural, suburban and urban communities of greater Hartford. Many of our members reside in the economically poorest communities in the state of Connecticut. Economically poor, but rich in a multitude of other ways, and our goal, as an organization, is to nurture that vast richness, especially the “richness” embodied in our children and families.

Our Parent and Youth Achievers Program has created a legacy of achievement that inspires everyone connected to the program. That legacy is cultivated by our collective commitment to, and love for, the children and families we serve. And the fruit of that collective commitment is a cadre of successful and empowered young people. These youngsters are excelling in school and pursuing post-secondary educations, enhancing their chances for successful, healthy and productive lives. However, this is not the whole story.

In addition to the success experienced by children, our Achievers Program offers a “pay it forward opportunity” for many adults in our community. The success of our program is dependent upon the support and direct engagement provided by a great number of volunteers. These volunteers become keenly aware of the “view” they offer our youth – a view into a multitude of career options – a view of what comes of hard work and determination – a view of success. Our volunteers have witnessed first-hand, the power and grace of servant leadership, as they give their time, talents and treasure in support of the next generation of civic leaders, scholars, professionals and servant leaders. In fact, while our volunteers are inspiring, they are being inspired – the proverbial two-way street.

Our Parent Achievers warrant recognition for their efforts as well. These are the mothers, fathers, grandparents and guardians of the children we serve. They meet whenever their children meet. And they support one another as parents, neighbors and citizens. They share an incredible bond, and each child in the program belongs to all of them. They collective share in their respective successes and challenges. They are the “village” that raises the children.

In closing, let’s focus on our children. It is our job, as adults – parents, volunteers and Y staff, to offer them the opportunities they need for success, but it is our children who must take advantage of same. They are the ones who are doing the hard work needed to be successful in life. They are the true “Champions of Change.” Let us recognize and celebrate their success!

JoAnn Price has helped develop the Youth Achievers and Adult Achievers Program at the Wilson-Gray YMCA.

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