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Updated on Saturday, Aug. 5 at 9:21 a.m. | Posted: Friday, Aug. 4 at 5:10 p.m.

After decades of providing a community space for fitness and public service, the uptown and downtown locations of YWCA Minneapolis will close on Nov. 1.

On Thursday, the organization announced it would be restructuring to “further disrupt the systemic issues plaguing children and their families.” The organization points to the COVID-19 pandemic for worsening existing disparities, including access to education and mental health resources. 

As a result, the organization wants to expand its offerings for early childhood education, its Girls and Youth programs and its racial justice and policy programs.

Still, the announcement was a shock and disappointment to many in the Twin Cities.

Geri Katz said her whole family has been going to YWCA in downtown Minneapolis for years.

“I've been a member of the YWCA, my whole life,” Katz said. “I learned to swim there when I was three years old and then I've been a paying member myself since I was probably 22. So that's a long time.”

Katz said she loves the YWCA because it’s a nonprofit with an anti-racist and feminist mission, so she understands why the organization wants to focus more on programs specific to that goal. But that doesn’t mean she’s not disappointed.

In addition to closing the two locations, the Otters and Masters swim team programs have been eliminated. Katz’s two sons are swimmers on the Otters team and they found out it would be canceled last week. 

Her older son was upset to lose a group of friends he’s been swimming with for seven years, and she said her younger son burst into tears.

“He just was so excited to finally start swimming competitively like his big brother and he was really upset,” she said.

Katz said their coaches tried their best to help families find other programs, but it’s been hard to find another facility accepting new swimmers next season. But at that time Katz didn’t know YWCA Minneapolis was also planning on closing two facilities.

“We just wish that since they've been working on this new strategic plan for months that we could have had some notice earlier so that we could have made plans for our families,” Katz said.

That sentiment is rippling across the community. Denise Fahl has been a member of YWCA Minneapolis since 1999 and heard the news while on vacation.

“For us, it's terrible to lose that resource,” Fahl said. She said her 16-year-old daughter made so many friends from the Otters swim team and even became a lifeguard working at the Y. Fahl supports the YWCA’s mission to eliminate racism and empower women but has been disappointed with communication about the news.

“I get it, I understand the disparity and it's horrible,” Fahl said. “I don't personally like that this is the choice that they made about how they need to do that … I feel like the rollout of it and like the communication of the information was really handled poorly, like really awful.”

Despite her concerns, Fahl said she will continue to support the YWCA but wonders if there was a way to make both the swim team and the other YWCA programs work.

Shelley Carthen Watson, president and CEO of YWCA Minneapolis, said it was a hard decision to decide to close two facilities but it was necessary for the organization financially and to adapt to the community's needs. 

“We saw how COVID had exacerbated the trauma that we were seeing in our early childhood children as well as our Girls and Youth programs,” Carthen Watson said. “We thought those communities needed us more. And so we decided to pivot.”

Watson said the decision to shut down the swim team programs this summer was made with the help of the aquatics staff to best serve the kids and their families due to the timing of the competitive seasons. Carthen Watson said she understands the disappointment members have about losing the swim and gym centers, but said the YWCA was never just a fitness center.

“People tend to confuse us with the YMCA and they think that we're a fitness facility. And I don't think a lot of folks understand all that we do,” Carthen Watson said.

The biggest programs at YWCA Minneapolis are its early childhood programs, along with girls and youth, racial justice and public policy programs and workplace development programs.

“And we do all of that with 350 people,” Carthen Watson said.

Another concern is the number of jobs lost due to the shutdown. Eighty-five people will be let go from the closings, the majority of whom are part-time employees mainly working in the fitness center, said Watson.

“For most of them, it's not their primary source of employment, which makes us feel a little better,” she said. “But we've also partnered with folks like the YMCA and some other folks who are always trying to hire. So we're working on helping people transition to new positions.”

YWCA Minneapolis started a strategic planning process six months ago with consulting firm McKinsey & Company, where they went through all of the program costs, how many people were being served and the need in the community. 

“So when McKinsey was looking at all of this, looking at our finances, what was breaking even what wasn't, we looked at the fitness industry overall,” Carthen Watson said. “And the fact that it wasn't rebounding, we looked at the fact that the majority of YWCA locals in the country have moved away from swim and gym, simply because of the cost.”

Carthen Watson told MPR News that YWCA Minneapolis health and wellness operations lost $2.8 million over the last fiscal year. Closing down the uptown and downtown locations will give them a projected $2.5 million towards next year’s budget.

At YWCA Minneapolis, 60 percent of families participating in the early childhood program are low-income and 75 percent are families of color. With the extra income from closing down two locations, Watson said YWCA Minneapolis plans to provide more tuition and scholarship assistance for families and more enrichment activities like music and art.

They’ll also be able to allocate more resources to investing in staff and teacher training.

“There is such a shortage of child care teachers that they're actually bidding wars between the different centers to get people in and to get them to stay,” Carthen Watson said. “And so we would like to increase the salaries for them. We'd like to give them more professional development opportunities.”

The pool and swimming classes will still be available at the YWCA Midtown location and the organization is actively looking for a new location for its downtown child center.

Correction: Denise Fahl’s name was misspelled in a previous version of this story. The error has been corrected.

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YWCA Minneapolis is closing down two locations this fall. The organization said it’s restructuring to better address longstanding inequities in the Twin Cities.

YWCA Minneapolis closes two locations, cuts swim team, pivots more resources to early childhood

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