Here’s What the Wayne YMCA Currently Offers – With Wayne Township Promising the Same in Takeover

WAYNE, NJ - As soon as November of 2024, Wayne Township may be acquiring the local YMCA, its 14-acre property and its 150,000 square foot facility - which includes a ton of space, a fitness center, a gym, squash courts, pickleball courts, an indoor swimming pool and more. The prospect of this possible acquisition has many people excited, and some people worried – particularly the current members.

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Mayor Chris Vergano has promised ““to maintain and improve upon all of the programs that are there now.” Which is a big task because the YMCA in Wayne has a comprehensive list of programming and currently serves over 6,200 members.

Rick Gorab, the President and CEO of the Metro YMCAs of the Oranges – the current operator of the Wayne YMCA, said that the Y is “a very complex organization that requires strong executive leadership.”

With Tim Roetman, the Director of the Wayne Parks & Recreation Department, slotted to take over the operation of the facility, Vergano is confident that they will be able to handle the complexity of the task and maintain the new community center as a utility. This means that the fees collected for any of the programs that will be available will pay for the costs to maintain the facility “and keep the lights on,” as Vergano put it.

With the promise to keep all the existing YMCA programs and services, TAPinto asked current Executive Director of the Wayne YMCA, Joanne Brown, for a comprehensive list of all the current programming now available for YMCA members and which may soon become available for all Wayne residents. She was happy to oblige.

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“The Ys are known for being kind of a gym-and-swim type of establishment, where people think of coming to work out and to play basketball and swim some laps,” she said in her introduction. “But there is definitely a lot more to the Y than just those two aspects.”

Though the pool is a big draw, and Brown said that the YMCA organization was the first to offer organized swim lessons. “So, we see ourselves as America's swim instructor,” she said.

The Y’s swim lessons start as early as a parent with their infant together and progresses over the years, with lessons available for children, teens and adults.

There is also a competitive swim team for ages 6-18 called the Bluestreaks which competes not just in YMCA swimming contests but USA Swim meets as well. As of the last September-through-March Bluestreaks season, there were 100 swimmers taking part in it, according to Executive Director Brown.

All this is in addition to other pool uses that vary from water fitness classes to full lifeguard certification.

During the summer, one of the largest sets of programs that the YMCA offers is White Pines day camp and Teen Adventure camp. These are full-day programs which help meet the needs of working families and see  about 180 kids taking part in their ten-week summer camps each week.

“We're an American Camp Association accredited camp,” Brown explained, “So we also make sure that we're meeting the standards of that accreditation, and that has to do with staffing and safety components that we ensure are in place with our camp program. We do a lot of work around risk management and ensuring that all our camps are meeting the highest standards of safety.”

The gym is another iconic part of the YMCA, but it’s not just for lifting weights. While strength training is definitely part of the activities available, there are so many more that are offered. Whether it's basketball and soccer pickup games or classes across all ages, or something newer like pickleball and squash.

Comprehensive fitness groups are also offered in spades, with around 60 classes happening through a single week. Many of those classes are gentler activities like chair yoga, Zumba, or conditioning stretching which are frequented by senior members to the YMCA.

Something you might not immediately think of when you picture the YMCA, yet has proven to be very popular nonetheless, is their theater program and many shows they put on through the year. There are two youth productions, a teen production, and then a unique inter-generational show where anyone of any age, including whole families, can participate together in a performance. The four shows are spread throughout the year, with the next one being the inter-generational show in the Fall. The theater also holds the Summer Concert series where different performers come to play in the air-conditioned theater in the evening, which in the past has hosted up to eight concerts in a year and has been a staple of the Wayne YMCA for the past 20 years. That’s not all though as the Y even allows for a tremendous amount of rentals of the theater stage, allowing the community or businesses to run their own events there which have ranged from independent stage shows, spring dance recitals, graduation ceremonies for technical schools, cultural group events that need a theater type setting, and more.

One of the overlooked facets of the Wayne Y is the social aspect.

“We hear from people all the time about the friendships that they've made here at the Y,” Brown told TAPinto. “People have told me that they've made friends with people that they wouldn't normally run into in other aspects of their life, and some have become lifelong friends. I've even heard of people meeting here at the Y getting married.”

Brown continued: “The Wayne YMCA is more than just a place to work out; it’s about the relationships, and that's what keeps people coming back every day, knowing that their group is here waiting for them; someone's looking out for them.”

Social connection is more important than ever and Brown is hopeful that the township can continue this tradition should they take over the Wayne YMCA.

Here’s a lot more:

• ABC Early Childhood Learning Center (ages 6 weeks - 5 years) - full day care for infants through Pre-K 4. The Center operates under the licensing requirements of the State of NJ Department of Children and Families. Our teachers implement the Creative Curriculum. children enjoy indoor and outdoor play, enrichment programs and swim lessons for pre-schoolers. In the summer, ABC Day Camp provides an introduction to the camp experience on a smaller scale for our youngest campers.
• White Pines Day Camp (ages 5 - 14 years) - White Pines is an American Camping Association (ACA) accredited camp program.  Campers experience a wide range of sports and enrichment activities, form strong friendships, learn cooperation and teamwork skills, and have fun during 10 fun-filled weeks of camp. Teens in grades 6 - 8 enjoy additional trips and age-appropriate activities in Teen Adventure Camp.
• Youth Programs -recreational sports and enrichment classes include Basketball, Soccer, STEM, Lego Club, Theater Club
• Teen Programs - Monthly Teen Nights, volunteer opportunities; Middle School Initiative Membership - A free program for kids in grades 6-8 to support and encourage youth to live healthy lifestyles and make responsible choices.
• Aquatics - We offer a wide selection of parent & child, preschool, school-age, teen, and adult swim lessons that build strong and confident swimmers. All age groups are taught the same skills but divided according to their developmental milestones. Every June we provide a week of free swim lessons for the community through our Safety Around Water program. The Wayne Y's BlueStreaks competitive swim team provides a comprehensive year-round swimming program. We are a USA Swimming affiliated team competing in Invitational meets as well as the Northern NJ YMCA Swim League.
• Group Exercise classes for adults - please find attached schedules that we discussed with descriptions
• Senior Programming - seniors enjoy a wide range of programs including Pickleball, Lunch and Learns provided in partnership with the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey, community events
• Programming for people with disabilities - EPIC (Every Person Included Counts) monthly social/recreational programming for young adults with disabilities - dances, pool parties etc. Motion and Muscle class
• Chronic Disease Prevention programs - Phase 3 Cardiac Rehab with St Josephs Health, LiveStrong at the Y, Delay the Disease (class for people with Parkinsons disease)
• Special events for the community - Healthy Kids Day in April, Senior Health and Fitness Day in May, Disability Resource Fair in September, BooFest in October.
• Theater Programming - produce two youth productions, a teen production, and an intergenerational show (adults and children) each year. Summer Concert Series. Numerous rentals to local community groups and touring performers.
  

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