Club Meeting – December 1st, 2016

Rotary Club of Salem member Mark Johnson – President & CEO of YMCA Roanoke Valley and Trisha Reynolds – Salem Executive Director addressed the group. Many of the club members have some level of involvement in the Salem Valley YMCA from being on the Salem YMCA Board of Directors to just being YMCA members using the facilities to exercise or swim.

Beyond the more obvious functions of the YMCA, they discussed two of the YMCA’s  promises to the community.

1) Diabetes awareness  –

View WSLS video “Sounding the alarm on growing issue of diabetes in the valley”

An effort to have people with Pre-Diabetes aware of their situation and offer activities to help them from progressing into diabetes.

Diabetes risks – Know your risk survey is on the YMCA website 

YMCA has only program for pre-diabetes with the emphasis on lifestyle changes.

View You Tube video of this program’s success story from a sister YMCA.

2) Y Splash – A water safety program for second graders

The YMCA realized an extremely high percent of youths could not swim at all.  They started with the four City of Salem Salem Elementary Schools.  The program has now expanded to 34 Roanoke Valley elementary schools.

In closing, details of the YMCA support for many under privileged youths was outlined.  The Y operates 20 after school sites caring for 542 children plus providing a meal. Over 7,000 meals are provide each year through feed and read programs.

To lear more about all the YMCA does in our valley… visit YMCA Programs.

A special thank you to Joe Foley for providing content needed
for this Rotary Recap!