It’s been three months since community hub YMCA closed to the public in response to the pandemic. While the province slowly reopens, here is what you can expect in the coming weeks.
The centre launched its childcare and summer daycare program as part of Phase 2 of reopening the province and will be running two day-camps starting the week of July 6 in their outdoor Guelph Lake Conservation Area and their indoor centre on Woodland Glen Drive with reduced group sizes.
“We’re certainly encouraged by the government’s decision to gradually reopen. We think this is a positive step for our community and our Y as we all start to have to figure out how to live with this virus,” said CEO of YMCA-YWCA of Guelph Geoff Vogt.
The Y is also running an emergency childcare centre that will continue until June 26.
“After receiving word from the government last week, we’ve been working hard to keep our centres open,” said Vogt.
Vogt said it will be a very different camp experience where children and staff will practice social distancing, stay in small groups, go through daily screening and practice increased sanitization protocols.
“For both of these, we’re following very strict guidelines from public health to ensure camper safety and daily screening for staff, campers and smaller groups,” said Vogt.
“At this point, our priority continues to be the health and safety of the staff and the community and everyone we serve.”
Vogt said the Y has not slowed down on their virtual offerings for the centre as lots of people in the community express the need to connect with each other.
The province hinted that it will be a few more weeks until the discussion of Phase 3 begins. Until that happens, Vogt said the centre is rearranging and cleaning their spaces to safely operate once they open.
“When we do open, the users and members of our building can expect a different experience,” said Vogt.
Vogt says there will be spacing between equipment and rearrangement of equipment to allow for safer distancing,
He said the centre will gradually open over time as community members become comfortable with service offerings. Until then, they will continue to provide virtual services.
“Since the third day of the shutdown, we’ve been very focused on virtual,” said Vogt about their virtual website, This is Y that has numerous virtual fitness options such as videos and live classes for individuals, families and children.
While their doors have been closed, Vogt said it hasn’t stopped them from checking in on community members.
“We’ve had staff who over a phone call have taught people how to use FaceTime or Zoom so they can talk to their grandkids,” said Vogt.
“We’ve had some vulnerable folks who early on did not have some support in place so we actually had staff that volunteered and went and got them groceries.”
He said while everyone tries to figure out how to work differently, stories like this help provide the organization with extra fuel when people may not be having the greatest day.
“Because people see each other on a regular basis, we’re often checking up on one another. When we haven't seen someone in a while both at a member level or staff or volunteer, we check up on one another to make sure things are okay at home,” said Vogt.
“We are a community, we are a hub, we are a place for people to come and gather and see one another and I think that has been a challenge for everyone over the last three months so I think people are missing that ability to wave to a friend or say hi to a friend for sure.”
He says at the end of the day, the community is going to define their readiness for the centre more than it will define its readiness for them.
“We know that not everybody is going to be ready at the same moment to return,” said Vogt.
“It will be a different experience. This virus isn’t going away and we’re all going to have to figure out how to work in coexistence with it.”
