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Year after year, Voice readers have voted the Mountain View YMCA the best gym and the place to take fitness classes and yoga, but the nonprofit is much more than a center for health and fitness. It also provides support for youth and seniors, whether that’s through an extensive volunteer network, educational opportunities or other community resources such as day camps and nutrition programs.
“What the Y does best is bring people together and build community,” Mary Haughey, chief operating officer of YMCA of Silicon Valley, said.
When the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in the Bay Area, one of the questions Haughey and the Silicon Valley team asked themselves was how to pivot its existing resources and partnerships to help their community in the midst of the health crisis.
The YMCA quickly leveraged its partnerships with organizations like Second Harvest of Silicon Valley and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Summer Food Service Program to distribute half a million meals to local families in need.
The organization also turned its attention to help ease the daily demands of parents working in the health care field by providing full-day academic support for students in kindergarten to eighth grade, Renee Zimmerman, executive director of El Camino YMCA, said.
Building upon its after-school service arm, which once included over 100 programs on school campuses throughout San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, the YMCA created the Y Learning Labs for Super Scholars at several locations, including the YMCA at 2400 Grant Road in Mountain View.
“It was a natural pivot,” Haughey said.
The Y didn’t forget its role in health and fitness: At the El Camino YMCA, the yoga studio has turned into a virtual studio that hosts a wide array of live and on-demand online fitness programs for people of all ages, including seniors.
The virtual world is brand new territory that the organization had been thinking of expanding into for years about entering for years, and the pandemic gave them the incentive they needed. Now, Haughey said the Y is looking to expand its online content to include more programs focused on family engagement.
“We have this dream where parents and their children can cook together, led by a YMCA staff member, or it could be a read-aloud for families with preschoolers,” Zimmerman said. “We’ve learned something brand new, something that we can add to our wheelhouse.”
This story appeared as part of the Voice’s Best of Mountain View online edition. With this year’s Best Of, we salute the efforts of local businesses as they redefine their operations during the coronavirus pandemic. We are sharing the stories of how some businesses have responded to the coronavirus and taking a look at how our 2019 Best Of winners are doing a year later.
Read more Best of Mountain View 2020 stories
