New Family Y opens doors to community

The facility, which the Family Y shares with Cedar Creek Church’s West Campus, is the first Family Y in the country built in collaboration with a church, an arrangement that works well for the faith-based nonprofit organization. Built on 16 acres, the facility includes a wellness center with cardiovascular machines, weight machines and free weight equipment, a full-court volleyball and basketball court, a water park and childcare facilities.

“We’re very family-oriented,” McCauley said. “That’s the biggest thing that makes us stand out from the other gyms.”

A part of that family-friendly nature is the two hours of free childcare that members get with each visit to the Family Y. With the Kids Watch area for children from 8 weeks of age to 4 years and the Clubhouse for kids from 4 to 12 years of age, the options are so enjoyable for youngsters that McCauley said she hopes they will beg their parents to go to the gym.

The Clubhouse includes a Lego wall and four Xbox video game systems, the results of a survey of camp students while the Family Y was at its Hitchcock Healthcare location.

“We put out surveys all the time for our members – ‘What do you want?'” she said.

Another family-oriented aspect of the Family Y are the family locker rooms. In addition to male and female dressing areas complete with steam rooms and saunas, the family locker rooms offer an area for parents and children – or senior citizens who need assistance changing and showering – to get dressed without anyone needing to pass through the opposite sex’s locker room.

While she said many of the features of the facility are unique to the Family Y, McCauley said that if another gym in the area had something that her clients want, the nonprofit organization will try to make it happen.

“We don’t try to compete with other organizations in the area,” she said, adding that “if our members want it, we’re going to provide it.”

That provision will begin with the planned Phase II, which will include an indoor aquatic facility. Meanwhile, swim lessons are still available at the Hitchcock Healthcare location.

Another way the Family Y attempts to assist members is with a 12-week exercise support program at the beginning of the membership, which McCauley said makes members “less likely to fall off” their commitment to fitness.

In the first visit of the support program, the member is given an orientation complete with a health survey and goal-setting. After that, the member will meet with his or her trainer every two or three weeks to revisit their goals and their exercise plan.

“Those checkpoints are really what helps them stay on goal,” McCauley said.

The 12-week program is for anyone from senior citizens to triathletes, and the goals and exercises will be set realistically and may even include at-home activities like walking the dog.

“In other cases, it’s a mom who’s just had a baby, and she’s just getting back to working out, so we make her a program,” McCauley said.

While the Family Y is open every day, fitness activities will not take place before 1 p.m. on Sunday. Before that, Cedar Creek will be holding weekly worship services, an arrangement campus pastor Wes Holbrook said gives his church a unique opportunity.

“For us, most churches sit empty all week long, and most Family Y’s sit empty on Sunday mornings,” he said. “It gives us a chance to be the hands and feet of Jesus in a different place.”

The church will hold services in the basketball/volleyball gym, and classrooms will also be used by both groups. Holbrook said that the faith-based status of the Family Y organization makes the relationship a natural one.

“The benefits for us is that we get to be in a place that shares the same values and principles,” he said.

Holbrook said the process of sharing a building began when leaders of the church’s main Banks Mill campus felt that “building bigger buildings and expecting people to come” was not the way to reach people. The West Campus has been meeting at the USC Aiken Convocation Center until today.

Conversations began with the developers at Trolley Run and, in turn, Danny McConnell, the CEO of Augusta-area Family Y facilities.

“So it went from, ‘Why don’t we share a parking lot?’ to ‘Why don’t we share a building?'” Holbrook said.

As for the Family Y, memberships for a family of two adults plus dependents are $67 a month with a $100 joiner’s fee. The fees are different for each family’s situation, and memberships are also available for individuals of any age.

Assistance with fees is available to those who need it through fundraising during the organization’s Community Support Campaign, a fact McCauley is surprised more people in the area don’t know about.

“It’s interesting to me that people don’t know we’re a nonprofit,” she said, adding that their goal is for no one to be turned away because of inability to pay. “We offer financial assistance to anyone who can’t afford to pay for the Y.”