Kosciusko County Community YMCA had a ribbon-cutting ceremony with the Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce Monday for the Downtown Warsaw YMCA, which opened its doors June 10. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union.

By David Slone
Times-Union

WARSAW — Downtown Warsaw YMCA is only about a nine-minute drive from the main YMCA campus north of US 30, but the downtown facility reaches people that otherwise may not be served.

Monday afternoon, July 15, the YMCA, its supporters and the Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce had a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Downtown Warsaw YMCA, 575 W. Fort Wayne St., which opened a little over a month ago.

Jim Swanson, Kosciusko Community YMCA chief executive officer, said the mission of the YMCA is to put Christian principles into practice through programs that build healthy mind, body and spirit.

“And that’s about finding communities that need the things we do, and finding unreached communities where we can serve and where we can connect, and where we can help in the area of healthy living and in the area of growth and fitness and all those things that are very, very important today,” he said.

The Downtown Warsaw YMCA occupies the space that once housed the Madison Elementary School gymnasium.

“We heard about this space a long time ago, and we’ve been thinking about coming downtown for quite a while. Part of that is, we learned pretty quickly that people don’t want to drive more than nine minutes in Kosciusko County,” Swanson said. “So while we’ve been blessed with a beautiful building on the hill, as we call it, up there off 30, we realize that for some crossing 30 is a barrier.”

He said the YMCA wanted to come downtown and “we knew it was an unreached community. Once we heard through Cary (Groninger) and G & G Hauling that this building was available — we talked to the (Warsaw) school system a while back as well — we wanted to connect to this building, and our board had the tremendous vision to reach out and make this happen.”

Once they decided to make it happen, the process took about 1-1/2 years.

“I will say what a privilege to work with Robinson Construction. It’s just been a fantastic, seamless process,” Swanson said.

The value of the building is its history, he said.

“We knew we wanted to restore and protect the history of this building,” he said. “… There’s a lot of people and a lot of memories that connect with the school that they went to and/or the athletic facilities that they played in.”

Swanson said they did the best the could to maintain as much of the school’s history as they could, and they will add more pieces down the road, such as pictures.

The backboards, the scoreboard, the red padding around the side of the gym, along with the floor, was part of the old Madison school and remains there.

Swanson thanked G & G Hauling & Excavating, K21 Health Foundation, Lake City Bank, Kosciusko County Community Foundation, Robinson Construction, other donors, staff, board of directors, community members and YMCA members.

Warsaw Mayor Jeff Grose said six months ago after he was first elected he challenged the community to make the community one where neighbors served neighbors while cultivating community.

“Jim’s already talked about it. Serving this community. Think of all the individuals — thanks to the board; thanks, Jim; thanks to all the stakeholders who are here – to serve the community, the YMCA,” Grose said. “I’m the mayor of the City of Lakes. Guess who taught me how to swim? The YMCA.”

He said the YMCA will better the downtown.

Cary Groninger, president of G & G, said while it’s been about a 1-1/2-year project for the YMCA, “Mine goes back a little further than that. This has been about a four-year journey when the Groninger family first looked at this property when it was still the Madison school. And, at that time, this gym was attached to an old school in dire need of demolition and pretty much the property cleaned up.”

As they toured through the school and came upon the gymnasium, he said it was easy to see all the potential that it could have for the community.

“We took it upon ourselves to try to find those right partners that we could partner with to really be able to make this something that the community could take part in,” Groninger said. “It’s really been cool and I really appreciate the board of the Y coming together and being able to see the need in our community downtown and really being willing to step into that need and take that step forward to try and provide for that, because I really do believe that this is something our downtown Warsaw needs, as well as our whole south side. That 30 really does become a barrier.”

He said he believes the Downtown Warsaw YMCA will definitely have a significant impact on the community.

David Findlay, chairman and CEO of Lake City Bank, said he was on the YMCA board of directors when the Y owned the racket club on the north side of town.

“We were trying to envision what the Y would become in Kosciusko County and where it should be. And that decision to cross 30 was a big one that the board made at that time. We knew there would be a price to pay for that decision with limited access for some people who really couldn’t get across 30 or didn’t want to be across 30,” he said. “And it’s such a neat thing from the bank’s perspective to see an evolution of what this has become because this really does start the solution of the problem we saw as we built on the other side of 30 14 years ago.”

Findlay said Elkhart County lost its YMCA eight years ago, “and the strength of Y’s throughout the country are really nowhere near what this Y has become.”

Jennifer Stewart, grant manager for K21 Health Foundation, said K21 has had a longstanding relationship with the YMCA.

“It was a little over two years ago that Jim and Stacy had come and presented to our board this idea of you coming here. We love data — you gotta show us data — and when they told us that it was over 80% of their membership was north of 30, that stuck with our board, and I think that might have moved the mountain with our board members to see that this section of the community really does have that barrier,” she said.

She said the fact that Downtown Warsaw YMCA serves the underserved south and west side of Warsaw, and beyond, really hits K21’s mission statement.

The last speaker before the ribbon-cutting was Scott Schneider, Kosciusko County YMCA board president. He thanked a number of people and encouraged everyone to get fit along with him, and then he led everyone in prayer.

The upper floor of the facility is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week for members. Regular hours are 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.