Category: News

KYESHIA LIKELY WILL EXPAND PARTNERSHIPS & SERVICES THROUGH THE Y 

[OLYMPIA, WA – September 23, 2022] — PLEASE JOIN US IN WELCOMING KYESHIA TO OUR COMMUNITY!

The Y is excited to welcome Kyeshia Likely as our Executive Director of Community Engagement. This new role in the organization is focused on developing innovative approaches to service delivery through deep stakeholder engagement and co-creation of programs. Additional focus will be on the creation of organizational policies and structures that remove barriers and foster equity and inclusion for all.

Kyeshia sees herself as an empowering leader with a passion for developing relationships and advocating for the needs of people most impacted by systemic structures of oppression. She began her career as an AmeriCorps volunteer where she served communities in the Greater Seattle area. During this time, she supported school retention efforts, access to basic needs, and mentorship programs.

Most recently, Kyeshia put her community-building skills to work through youth programs at a Seattle-based nonprofit, Choose180. A highlight of her time there was forming a youth-led advocacy division which supported young people around Washington State in drafting and learning about community policy reforms.

As Executive Director of Community Engagement in the South Sound YMCA, Kyeshia is determined to form stronger community bonds that will create a platform for all voices to be heard, especially young voices.

Kyeshia will join the Y team on Monday, September 26th! Please join us in welcoming her to our amazing South Sound community! Reach out to Kyeshia at likelyk@ssymca.net.

OLYMPIA, WA — The South Sound YMCA is surveying our community to learn how the COVID-19 pandemic has shifted childcare needs for families. Information provided from parents, future parents, caregivers, and employers will be used to adapt childcare and program offerings in the coming years.

Results will also be shared with community partners and compiled with current data from around our region to reduce duplication of services and ensure kids and families in the South Sound have access to the programs and resources necessary to thrive.

Please fill out the EMERGING CHILDCARE NEEDS SURVEY between June 15 & July 15 and be entered to win a choice of the prices below:

– A 3-month family membership*
– One set of Apple Airpods
– One week of summer day camp with the South Sound Y

*Available for new memberships only.

Learn more about YMCA youth and teen programs, including school-based childcare, online at www.SouthSoundYMCA.org/youth-programs/ or contact us at 360.918.0400.

Save our Children.

Doesn’t’ seem like it’d be necessary to write these words. Doesn’t seem like it’d be necessary to create a “Humanitarian Case for Support” that urges people to take action as hundreds of children are slaughtered. Doesn’t seem like it’d be necessary to increase the “urgency” of the problem. Doesn’t seem like it’d be necessary that three weeks in a row our nation is confronted with unimaginable violence.

And yet, here. WE. are.

When staff come to my office and ask me, “do you think I should quit working and homeschool my kids because I’ll know I’ll see them at the end of the day?” Or when a mom tells me her daughter wakes up with nightmares of school lockdown drills. How ‘bout when a teacher tells me she decided to change shoes as she’s leaving home because the heels she had on weren’t good for running!

sit. with. that. – a professional educator is considering shoe choice based on the ability to run – to live – to see her family – and make it through the day☹

When will it Stop?

21, 57, 63

Those are the numbers of the last three Texas Mass Shootings.

Since Sandy Hook, the nation has suffered more than 3,500 mass shootings, and lawmakers have excused them by claiming they didn’t actually happen, or by insisting we need more guns so there will be “a good guy with a gun” to take out a shooter, or that we need to “harden targets,” or that we need more police in the schools (which has simply led to more student arrests).

Apparently those numbers are not enough to convince 50 elected senators to sign HR 8 – the universal background check bill passed by the house. 90% of Americans are in favor, regardless of political affiliation.

What will it take?

In 2004, a ten-year federal ban on assault weapons expired, and since then. Mass shootings have tripled. Zusha Elinson, who is writing a history of the bestselling AR-15 military style weapon used in many mass shootings, notes that there were about 400,000 AR-15 style rifles in America before the assault weapons ban went into effect in 1994. Today, there are 20 million!

When will it Stop?

SAVE. OUR. CHILDREN!