Could you survive without your local YMCA?

Thanksgiving Day, November 28th

Blog entry by: Megan Bushey (Harris Y Camp Counselor/Youth&Government, Senior at Charlotte Catholic HS)

Could you survive without your local YMCA? Would you just find another ' swim and gym'? Maybe if you lived in the U.S., but for the people in the village of Roff it's the YMCA that makes receiving aid possible.

The drive from Dakar was a long, and rather bumpy one. Earlier in the week our group had visited a slum in there and found a different type of poverty level that we had never experienced before. It still didn't prepare us for what we found in Roff. No electricity, no fresh or running water, and just the shade of the baobab trees to keep them and their reed huts cool. Agriculture is the main source of survival out here so when we visited the men were away tending the fields and livestock. Most of the women and children that greeted us did not have clean clothes or shoes.

Yet, with so much to want for they greeted us with a kind of hospitality that would put any southerner to shame. There wasn't a frown to be found for miles, and their smiles only grew wider when we revealed the gifts we had brought with us. Rice, soap, candy, water, clean shirts, and anti-malaria bed nets were the causes of their gratitude and joy. They even started singing about it.

It is villages and people like this that should inspire the YMCA to continue building healthy mind, body, and spirit for all. This is why we are not just 'swim and gyms', or childcare. We are educators, missionaries, and mentors. If you work the YMCA and care nothing for the welfare of your community then you are in the wrong occupation.

This week has opened me up to a whole other side of the YMCA that I never knew existed. The level of care and concern that the YMCAs of Senegal show for their communities is unparalleled, and they are able to do so much with so little. I hope that upon my return to the states that I can share my experience in such a way that we would be able to give more to these African YMCAs. 

Can I save the whole world? Absolutely not.  But I can share my experiences with my YMCA and inspire my community to help. Luckily in the United States our YMCAs receive enough funding so that they don't have to turn away new people, but the Senegal YMCAs do. Maybe our global service learning team will be the ones to change that. Besides, it only takes the moment of one pebble to change the course of an entire stream.

- Megan Bushey

Harris YMCA teen