YMCA sets membership drive goal for 2022

By Alejandra Pulido-Guzman - Lethbridge Herald on May 5, 2022.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDapulido@lethbridgeherald.com

The YMCA of Lethbridge is celebrating their anniversary on May 7 and launching a campaign to reach a significant membership milestone throughout the month of May.
Race to 10K is a campaign designed to celebrate the Cor Van Raay YMCA nearing the 10,000 member milestone with the aim of achieving that goal by the end of the month.
YMCA of Lethbridge’s Membership and Rentals Manager Debra LeBlanc said their post-pandemic recovery has been pretty dramatic.
“We wanted to take this opportunity to kind of cover up a couple of things, one is to thank our current members for being with us, some of them for the long haul, but some of them coming back as people’s comfort level has increased, and we wanted to encourage other people in the community to come and visit the Y and to experience what we have to offer as a community,” said LeBlanc.
Race to 10K encourages new members to sign up and be entered to win a grand prize of a one-year Plus Family Membership worth more than $2,250. The YMCA is celebrating current members for their loyalty to the YMCA of Lethbridge through a second grand prize for those who joined prior to May 2022.  
“Members will have the opportunity to be entered to win based on the numbers of days they are active members in May, visiting the Cor Van Raay YMCA, attending a fitness class, participating in our 10K activity challenge, and sharing posts on social media,” said LeBlanc.
She said they are aiming for 10,000 memberships because that is roughly 10 per cent of the current Lethbridge population and they feel like it is a nice target to aim for.
“Once we’re there, we’re probably going to look at other ways that we can expand and welcome more people into the community to become Y members but 10K feels like a good starting point for us,” said LeBlanc.
She said as a personal goal she would like to see their assisted membership increase as well.
“Personally one of my little pet projects is to get as many members as we can sustain in our association and actually to focus a little bit on our seniors in that respect, because we have a lot of senior members and a lot of them are on financial assistance.”
She said they want to educate people on options that they have to attend the YMCA, which they might think are financially outside of their ability.
“If they wanted to see if they could qualify for an assisted membership, we encourage them to fill our application online,” said LeBlanc.
She said she would like to see their assisted members make up about 25 per cent of their overall membership base.
“We’re reaching out to those people who are in need, as we are a charity first and foremost,” said LeBlanc.
She said they also want to celebrate their anniversary as they opened in May 2019 and were unable to celebrate their previous anniversaries.
“We’re going to actually be doing an event on May 7 to have some food trucks, have some games and activities planned and really just say thanks and give back in a fun way,” said LeBlanc.
For more information visit https://lethbridgeymca.ca/10k.

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