YMCA Bright Beginnings
Thank you to all of our volunteers and donors who made this year’s Bright Beginnings a success! See you in 2019!
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 Amelia Johnson at 336.983.3131 or email at amelia.johnson@ymcanwnc.org.