Your great-great-great-grandfather might have been one of the first men to call the McGaw YMCA home. Yet, as it prepares to celebrate its 125th year, McGaw is looking as fit and relevant in the 21st century as it did when it first drew breath in the basement of an Evanston church in 1885.
And that’s not a fact to sniff at.
In the time since McGaw started with its first 130 members and grew to its current 10,000-plus, typewriters have moved over for computers and autos have pushed horses off the streets.
Yet despite the changing times and competition, McGaw continues to thrive with its growing range of programs for families, children and seniors.
Plus, Camp Echo and the Y Adventure Guides, formerly known as Indian Guides and Indian Princesses, helps extend their reach up the North Shore.
“We still are very much a touch point and hub for the Evanston community,” says Juliet Garrard, McGaw’s marketing director.
Its Fountain-of-Youth secret: dedicated attention and response to that community and its needs.
“The original board was, well, it was a YMCA. It was a group of white men that got together. And that has clearly changed,” Garrard says. “Our board membership is now far more representative of the community in all respects.”
And what else lies in McGaw’s future?
“As in the next 125 years?” Garrard asks. “The big initiative that we’re working on is called Activate America.
”Its aim is to stimulate fi tness and nutrition by supporting entire families to achieve more active lifestyles and balance.
“Anything that supports the whole family,” Garrard says, “is part of making people healthy.”
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