Greater Joliet Area YMCA

GREATER JOLIET AREA YMCA

C.W. Avery, Central City, Galowich, Morris

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Why You Should Join the Joliet Y JETS Swim Team

WenLi, a fourth-grader/member of the Joliet Y JETS Swim Team, wrote a persuasive paper about why her peers should join the JETS. Check it out!

Hey! I would like you to join the Joliet JETS swim team. People on my team have more fun in life. If you joined my team, you could get out and get active, have more fun and be healthy.

The first thing you can do on my swim team is get out and get active. It is fun, you should try it. Why should you join a swim team? Well, the coaches try to encourage you and help you. They are nice to you too! Swimming is better than school, and sitting at home doing nothing. Join my swim team!

The next reason to join the swim team is to have fun, and have a good time. You should have fun in life, don’t be stuck in boring school! Have fun on the JETS and be yourself. We won’t care, you are who you are and we respect that. Don’t be stuck at home doing nothing when you can have so much fun on the JETS. We have fun in swim because people encourage us but in school you just do work and more work. We have free time to play in the pool and out of the pool. It’s fun! Don’t you want to do all of that fun stuff?

Last but not least, if you join the swim team, you will be healthy. You will be strong and have fun doing it! No more treadmill to be healthy, you just have to swim and have fun. Work your body, move your body, get strong, and get healthy. You will feel better, and your body will feel better too! Just join the Joliet JETS. It’s good for you!

Obviously, joining the swim team is an excellent choice. It’s fun and exciting. When you join the swim team, remember you can get out and get active, have fun, and stay healthy. As the JETS say, “Change is the dawn of improvement.”

The JETS 2014 Fall Swim Clinic will be held September 8-13. The clinic is an opportunity for swimmers to meet some of the coaches and try out the team to see if they would like to join. The coaches work on basic technique drills and provide instruction throughout the week as they evaluate where each swimmer will be placed if they decide to join. For more information, click here.

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The Unmatched Resilience of Angie Manheim

featured-angie-manheimAt age 36, Angie Manheim, a mother of five from New Lenox, was diagnosed with arthritis. Year by year, her condition worsened, and by age 50, her mobility had decreased significantly. Her kids, Angie recalled, had to take care of her.

“I couldn’t do anything for myself,” she said. “It’s been a long, hard ride, believe me.”

While on a family vacation in the Lake of the Ozarks, Angie made a life-changing discovery: Swimming relieved the pain. Suddenly, her joints were no longer stiff.

Luckily, back home, a brand new YMCA had just been built—the Smith Family YMCA on Briggs Street—complete with a swimming pool. When she returned, signing up was a no-brainer. Angie began using the pool regularly and her health steadily improved.

“After about eight months, the staff saw how it helped me and asked me if I’d run a class,” Angie said.

Despite having any prior experience teaching, she agreed.

“My first group had 12 people,” she said. “I would just go through the motions I had gone through, and before you know it I had over 60 people.”

That was 37 years ago. Today, the class, now known as Rusty Hinges, remains an incredibly popular program among seniors who have arthritis and other ailments. Angie, at 87-years-old, still leads class three days a week. [Read more…]

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JETS Host Swim-A-Thon at Joliet Country Club

10497195_641262295971867_1300809932599203157_oMembers of the Joliet Y JETS Swim Team gathered at the Joliet Country Club yesterday for a swim-a-thon—an event where athletes swim as many laps as possible in a given timeframe in order to raise money for a cause.

For one hour, swimmers put their skills to use, swimming lap after lap. To add a little family fun, they had the option to tag in a family member when they needed a break, allowing moms and dads (and brothers and sisters) to join the fun. More photos from the event can be found here.

A portion of the event’s proceeds will be donated to the Greater Joliet Area YMCA’s Annual Giving Campaign, which provides financial assistance to Y members who need it most. To donate to the Y’s Annual Campaign, please visit our website.

The Joliet Y Jets Swim Team is a year-round program that offers instruction and training to all swimmers, ages six and up, from beginners to elite. They are both a YMCA and USA Swimming club, which means swimmers get the opportunity to compete in a wide variety of meets, although competition is not mandatory. To learn how to get involved, please click here.

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“Bear Down on Bullies”

IMG_0640In an effort to educate campers about bullying, Staley Da Bear, the official mascot of the Chicago Bears, paid a visit to the Galowich Family YMCA. Staley and an emcee led an anti-bullying demonstration known as “Bear Down on Bullies”—where campers engaged in hands-on activities to learn about the importance of respect and how to deal with and prevent bullying.

Staley had quite the sense of humor, so the kids had a blast learning about the five types of bullies: Big-mouth bully, hands-on bully, butt-out bully, cyber-bully, and all-around bully.

At the end of the presentation, the campers were presented with a player-autographed “Bear Down on Bullies” banner to display within the Y.

With the beginning of the school year just around the corner, parents are encouraged to talk with their children about bullying. For more information about bullying, including tips on how you can talk with your child, please visit www.stopbullying.gov.

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Big News Out of Morris: Temporary Location Announced

IMG_1544We have great news to share with our local supporters now that it’s official! Last night, the Morris City Council approved a lease agreement with the Morris Community YMCA to occupy the former city hall located at 320 Wauponsee Street.

This will become the first physical presence for the Y in Grundy County, and we are looking forward to introducing a variety of new programs to the community from within the walls of this space.

This milestone marks the first of many steps toward the progress of opening a full YMCA facility to serve the residents of Morris and Grundy County. We appreciate your support of our programs and are excited to have a new home base to serve our members and volunteers.

Over the next several months we hope to share more updates about our future plans. In the meantime, if you’d like to provide feedback on the Morris Community YMCA, please contact Operations Director Missy Durkin via email at [email protected].

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Campers Volunteer at Sunny Hill Nursing Home

10582907_693766350676965_6395060137579952404_oAll summer long, a group of Galowich YMCA campers has been volunteering at Sunny Hill Nursing Home in Joliet. Twice per month, 25 campers (in grades 6-8) and four Y staffers have visited the facility to keep the residents company and have some fun along the way.

“After their first day there, they loved it,” Youth and Family Manager Lynette Soto said, with an emphasis on the word ‘loved’. “They wanted to keep going back. They were always asking me ‘Miss Lynette, when are we going back?’”

When they returned, Miss Lynette noticed the children’s social skills were thriving more than ever.

“They would go up to residents and introduce themselves,” she said. “Their confidence went through the roof. There was no coaching by the counselors or myself. They just recognized that this was serious and this was something big that they were doing.”

In late June, the campers crafted colorful banners to decorate the facility in preparation for Independence Day. Towards the end of July, they had an outdoor party that included a variety of games and some refreshments.

“Our last time there, in August, we are putting on a show for them,” Miss Lynette said. “The kids want to do a talent show. They want to do a dance. Some kids want to do some tricks they know how to do. Some kids want to sing.”

“I couldn’t be more proud of them,” she said.

View more photos here.

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