Some might call a block party on Sat., June 6, a bit of a heavy lift.
For the organization expanding into a new location— it’s no sweat!
Tomorrow marks the grand opening of the Family YMCA of Greater Augusta’s new, state-of-the-art facility in North Augusta. It will be at their new location at 406 E. Martintown Road.
“With this space, we can really accommodate this community, including almost double the childcare space, because our community loves growing their families, and that’s been a struggle for us to really support the community that we serve with the space that we had,” Melanie Quick, VP of Membership & Mission Advancement, told ABD. “We’ve got summer camp going on in our facility as we speak, so there’s about 70 plus kids roaming around.”
The block party is from 10-2 and will include a Kids Zone with inflatable games, tours of the facility, fitness class demonstrations, and about half a dozen food trucks. There will also be a Celebrity Pickleball Tournament to introduce people to the addition of a pickleball court, something not available at the previous location.
“It’s a very community-oriented sport,” said Quick, “Not highly competitive, even though there are some that are pretty competitive with it, but we will have folks from the Augusta GreenJackets, a City of North Augusta team, and another one from the North Augusta Department of Public Safety and Kicks 99. To kick off the tournament game, we’re doing a mascot pickleball game.”
Quick said they had used the building for their summer camp last year, and it looked like a suitable location to provide the additional space they needed.
“It was a blank slate that we can make it what our community really was asking of us,” she explained. “It had been Big Lot’s, and it was just completely gutted when we got it. The space we had, we outgrew that space. We had been there for about 17 years, it needed a lot of TLC that just was going to take a little too much time and investing than taking over a new building and growing it to what we needed it to be.”
The new location also gives the Family Y space to expand. In addition to the former Big Lots, they also purchased the space next door that used to house Badcock Furniture. That could provide a spot to create what many people hope to see in the future.
“The hope and the plan with the support is that that area becomes a pool,” she said. “The rendering shows that being an outdoor pool with a splash pad and a lap pool. The confusion probably comes from the fact that we had it on our capital campaign brochure to get people excited about what could be, but that’s the next phase once we get to the level that we need to be to really break ground on it.”
Quick said they first need to raise the funds to pay for the new space, so the capital campaign is still available for donations. Once the property is paid off, they can look ahead to the next phase, including a pool.
More information about the block party, and a link to donate to the capital campaign, are at: https://thefamilyy.org/
