The YMCA of Central Virginia Announces $11.5 Million Capital Campaign
The Downtown facility will undertake a major transformation to the new Schewel-Clark Family YMCA.
LYNCHBURG, VA – October 3, 2022 - The YMCA of Central Virginia announced that they have set an $11.5 Million Capital Campaign goal to complete a major transformation of the current Downtown YMCA. The successful completion of the Building for a Better US! Capital Campaign will completely transform the current Downtown YMCA into the new Schewel-Clark Family YMCA.
The announcement came at the end of the YMCA of Central Virginia’s Annual Impact Celebration, with nearly 150 community leaders and Y supporters in attendance to hear the broad impact the Y has throughout the community. Cindy Forren, YMCA of Central Virginia Board President introduced the project stating, “we spent this evening talking about the tremendous impact your Y has in the community and we are very excited to share that the Y will have an even greater impact in future years through the major transformation of our Downtown YMCA into the Schewel-Clark Family YMCA.”
Forren went on to thank Marc Schewel, who was in attendance, and his family for their $2 million leadership gift to jump-start this effort. “Under Marc’s leadership as the Chair of the Building for a Better US! Capital Campaign, I am also very excited to announce that through the generous support of over 100 community leaders, Board members and staff – we have now raised over $7.6 million toward our $11.5 million campaign goal,” Forren announced.
At the heart of this building transformation is a new 3-story, 23,000 square foot addition to replace the current lower portion of the building facing Church Street. This “Y of the future” will provide an open, welcoming environment with critical new spaces for community health programs, youth education and support, individual and group wellness, and family programming.
Key new features of the Schewel-Clark Family YMCA include:
- State-of-the-art 6,000+ square foot Wellness Center
- Large Group Exercise Studios and dedicated Yoga & Pilates Studio
- Youth Learning Center to provide academic enrichment opportunities for children, as well as collaborative space for community partners
- Large multi-purpose Community Center for special programming, educational classes, social activities and meetings
- Dedicated Teen Center space for safe and structured programming for teens
- Interactive 2-story Kids Adventure Zone play area for children ages 5–12
- Child Watch Area for high quality care of infants through 5-year-olds
- Teaching Kitchen to include instructional healthy cooking classes for all ages
To learn more about the details of the project and support the capital campaign go to ymcacva.org/transform.