YMCA Bright Beginnings
Every child deserves to feel confident on the first day of school. Many kids in our community don’t have the proper clothes or school supplies – but you can help. YMCA Bright Beginnings takes 80 school-age children in need back to school shopping with community volunteers. This program is part of the Y’s Annual Giving Campaign to support our neighbors in need and ensure that no child, family or adult is turned away due to an inability to pay. Your donation to YMCA Bright Beginnings and the Annual Giving Campaign helps make our community stronger.
We need your help! Our shopping days are August 14 and 16 from 1:00-5:00pm; we will serve 40 kids each day. On August 14 and/or August 16 we need volunteers to be either a personal shopper or to help sign kids and volunteers in, stuff backpacks on August 13, and to be a timer/dressing room monitor.
Students will be referred from Y programs, Communities in Schools, North Wilkesboro Housing Authority and Wilkes County Schools.
Interested in donating? Contact the YMCA about school supply, book bag, or financial donations to support a student.
Volunteers and donors can contact Jenny Richardson at j.richardson@ymcanwnc.org or 336.838.3991 ext. 6654 or to refer a student, please contact Caroline Whitson at c.whitson@ymcanwnc.org or 336.838.3991 ext. 6653.
For The Family
Community Garden
We are looking for adults to help our summer camp youth work in the raised beds at our YMCA. No experience needed, just a little bit of your time watering and weeding. Stop by the front desk for more information or to sign up. Contact Jenny Richardson at 336.838.3991 or j.richardson@ymcanwnc.org with questions.
Family Literacy
The YMCA Literacy Initiative offers El Nido (“The Nest”), which is a family literacy program that takes place on Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 6 to 8:30 pm at The Ledges Apartments Children’s Center on Anson Street in Winston-Salem (near the intersection of Peters Creek Parkway and Academy Street). El Nido provides book-based activities for children while their parents participate in ESL classes. Volunteers are welcome to help with activities for children or with ESL classes for their parents.
Contact Information
Julie Tomberlin, Literacy Program Director at (336) 727-9850
Adventure Guides
The YMCA has a long history of bringing parents and children together for life enriching experiences. This history has left a legacy of strengthened relationships and close bonds in many families and communities around the country. The YMCA of Northwest North Carolina has been a part of the Y-Indian Guide/Adventure Guides program for more than 30 years. Adventure Guides currently serves 20 tribes with over 400 participants in Forsyth, Stokes, Davie, Yadkin, and Wilkes Counties. Collectively, these tribes form the Adventure Guides Saura Nation.
The Adventure Guides Program aims to strengthen the bond between fathers and their children through activities that allow them to spend quality time together. Based on strong traditions of the Native American Culture including dignity, patience, endurance, spirituality, concern for the Earth and family values, these programs are tools that will help build memories that will last a lifetime.
Through Adventure Guides, the YMCA provides the following benefits to father and child:
- Foster companionship and understanding and set a foundation for positive, lifelong relationships between father and child
- Build a sense of self-esteem and personal worth
- Expand awareness of body, mind, and spirit
- Provide a framework to meet a mutual need of spending enjoyable, constructive, and quality time together
- Enhance the quality of family time
- Emphasize the vital role parents play in the growth and development of their children
- Offer an important and unique opportunity to develop & enjoy volunteer leadership skills
- Opportunity to meet other families with children the same age
Learn more about Adventure Guides »
For further information, please contact Branden Chesser at 336.983.3131 or email at b.chesser@ymcanwnc.org.