By Cecilia Nasmith/Today’s Northumberland
Over the next several months, the Town of Cobourg and YMCA Northumberland will collaborate on a mission to explore opportunities to ensure a healthier and more vibrant community.
Accompanied in the gallery by a contingent of Y board members in blue YMCA T-shirts, Chief Executive Officer Eunice Kirkpatrick addressed Cobourg council at Monday’s committee-of-the-whole meeting to request a memorandum of understanding, though the motion council passed called for a more general exploration of opportunities to collaborate.
As Director of Community Services Brian Geerts put it, there is the suite of services offered by the Town of Cobourg and the suite of services offered by the Y, and where they intersect offers the opportunity to work together more closely and find efficiencies.
A report is to come back to council within the first quarter of the new year. From that point, Chief Administrative Officer Tracey Vaughan said, it becomes more apparent what form such collaboration may take, whether it be a partnership agreement, memorandum of understanding, or some other kind of alliance.
Kirkpatrick led off her appearance with a brief history of the Y’s service to the community since 1870 – the space it occupied above the post office, the swimming lessons in the harbour, the 1948 purchase of a building on King Street for programming, and its sale in 1967 to fund the building of Centennial Pool and the wading pool in Victoria Park.
They are dedicated to ensuring everyone has the opportunity to try to reach his or her full potential – taking into account that those individuals with limited financial means are often the ones with a higher prevalence of chronic health conditions.
“It’s all about community impact,” Kirkpatrick said, listing their licensed child-care sites, Early ON sites, summer day camps, outdoor seasonal pools, international partnership with a Y in Nicaragua and such programming as the UpTurn initiative launched last year for those recovering from addictions.
There is also the simpler benefit of giving everyone a safe place to belong, to combat the isolation that is as dangerous as smoking, drinking and obesity.
Kirkpatrick also offered a look the numbers over the past year – for example, more than 121,180 visits to YMCA Northumberland facilities and 3,368 days of summer camp.
There were 6,283 visits to the Centennial Pool.
“It has become increasingly more challenging for communities to provide the necessary programs and services that meet the expectations of the people we serve,” Kirkpatrick said, adding that collaboration toward this end is a necessity for community organizations of all kinds, including municipalities such as Cobourg.
“I know for sure, by working together, we can fulfill our vision of providing a healthier, more inclusive, more sustainable community that gives everyone the opportunity to thrive and shine.”
