YMCA of Central Florida history

The four “fronts” or “platforms” of this work, as spelled out by the national Association in 1944, were now wide­ spread in the YMCA movement.

He led drives for the USO and American Red Cross in World War II, and in 1944 helped raise funds for a permanent headquarters for the Orange County YMCA, which he later served as president.

Again, his success was remarkable: From 375 members in the winter of 1945, Barber tripled the rolls in his first year, to 1,245.

Operating costs, less than $8,000 in 1945, had risen to nearly $31,000 in five years, even before Camp Wewa was purchased.

An “Over 18 Club,” formed jointly in 1947 by the YMCA and Young Women’s Community Club (YWCC), gave young adults a setting for social and recreational activities like hayrides and wiener roasts.

Raymond W Greene, a prominent realtor in Winter Park, served the YMCA as president in 1948 and later chaired its expansion committee (Rollins’ YMCA Man, next page).

Y’s Men met twice monthly for Monday suppers and informative pro­ grams, such as a public forum series in 1950 featuring noteworthy individuals who spoke about “current phases of our national and economic life.”

THE COMMUNITY’s CONFIDENCE in Stuart was crucial for the Orange County YMCA. By 1950, more than 62,000 people had participated in its activities-and the rapid expansion caused the Association to outgrow its quarters.

The 1950 annual report noted that the camp acquisition had left a deficit of about $1,800, which the debt-shy YMCA intended to erase “as soon as possible.”

The hotel the Association then occupied, he felt, was a “liability.” Sterchi had moved to Orlando in 1950 from Tennessee, to establish his family’s furniture enterprise there.

Member dues in 1951 were $2 per year, and meet­ings always began with a prayer.

He and Friday worked to create the Y-Indian Guide program, soon adopted by the national YMCA. A mother-daughter version, Y-Indian Maidens, was introduced in 1951 to support young girls as they became women.

He soon met Linton Allen’s daughter Elizabeth (known as Happy) at the First Presbyterian Church, and they married in 1951.

The YMCA introduced a new weekend family camping pro­gram at Wewa in 1954, featuring square dancing, fishing, water skiing, ping-pong, horseshoes, and softball.

In 1954, the YMCA bought the 30-bedroom hotel, and also acquired the 11-unit Hibiscus Motel behind it, plus adjoining vacant lots on Summerlin Street.

By 1954, 190 men participated in an eight-team winter volleyball league, and 150 grade school and junior high boys played in two basketball leagues, all using an outdoor field.

The YMCA camp program was a growing attraction in Orange County by 1954.

In 1954, the year his father passed away, Barber went overseas to Cairo to work as the YMCA’. s international representative, where he raised funds for five Egyptian Associations.

Minute Maid had purchased Doctor Philip Phillips ‘ orange groves for $5 million in 1954 and established a significant operation in Orlando.

Doors opened slowly: It was not until 1954 that these citizens were allowed to use the public library and auditorium.

The Orange County YMCAs operation was now quite diversified. Its largest revenue contributors in 1954 were the residence ($13,400), member dues ($8,600), and gifts ($13,000). The Orlando Community Chest, the YMCAs “parent agency,” allocated $9,000.

1955: Western Way Shopping Center opens.

1956: Martin Company builds missile plant in former pastures and groves; Colonial Plaza Shopping Center opens where T. G. Lee pasture and dairy stood.

The Winter Park resident recalled his first session in the legislature, in 1957, when there was a last-resort attempt to close state schools to black students.

By 1958, his father-in-law had persuaded Sterchi to leave the furniture business and join him at First National Bank, as a vice president.

By 1959, some 72,000 people were employed locally, a growth of nearly 120 percent in a decade.

The seller’s terms included retention of rights to the crop for the 1959- 60 season.

In 1959 Charles Wharton, of the Southern Area Council of YMCAs, advised the Association to create a facility just for black citizens. “Serious consideration should be given to this need which affects 17 percent of the population,” his report urged.

Following a 1961 merger with Marietta, the Martin Company laid off thousands in Orlando, and many families were forced to leave new homes and find work elsewhere.

Florida witnessed a historic event in 1961-the state ‘s first integrated high school conference, convened in Jacksonville by the YMCA State Youth Governors Program.

In 1961, the Association introduced its Caravan Camp – a first for Florid a.

Orange County population 264,000, Orlando 88,000; 686,000 live within 50 miles.1961: Hi-Y Convention is state’s first integrated high school gathering.

The Association board was ready to act on the $1.5 million long-range expansion plan it had approved in 1961.

Youth programs included Gra-Y for boys in grades 4- 6, Junior Hi-Y and Tri-Hi -Y for junior high youngsters, and Senior Hi-Y and Tri-Hi-Y for high school students. Its members were active in the annual Florida YMCA Youth Legislature in Tallahassee: The Orange County Association’s participation grew from 44 members in 1961 to 100 a decade later.

At this time, Brock felt a need to move on; in 1962, he accepted an opportunity to join the National YMCJ\s development office.

1962: First 4 YMCA branches established.

1962: Local school integration begins; lawsuit filed when it falters.

The Orange County YMCA had made a decision in the early 1960s not to withdraw its programs from any integrated school. Its first desegregated program, in 1962, was the Gra-Y at Rock Creek Elementary School near Colonial Drive. “Certain individuals [on the YMCA board] gave leadership to integration,” observed Phillips, citing in particular Doctor John Anderson and Jack Bowen.

In 1965, the papers ran a series of nine testimonials from prominent local citizens.

John Sterchi named to head YMCA building drive.1965: I-4 opens in Orlando; Dickson-Ives store folds.

A deacon of the First Presbyterian Church, he died in 1965, the year ground was broken on Mills, while being honored at a service in the Church’s Reformation Chapel that he and his wife had financed.

From the camp board of managers Barbara Roper became a delegate to the Metro YMCA board, bringing a new level of leadership Becky Roper wrote to her parents from Camp Wewa in 1967. to what was a largely male bastion where “women were tolerated, but not given much opportunity,” she recalled.

Those successes spurred the South Orlando branch, whose small facility had opened in 1968.

Cape Kennedy, as Canaveral was now known, took on increased importance locally as the nation stepped up its space program, anticipating the 1969 moon launch.

Winter Park architect John E. Dye and the North Orlando Kiwanis Club helped enormously with restoration, raising most of the $60,000 needed for a new recreational and dining building in 1969.

In a sign of things to come, a female volunteer won the Orange County YMCA’s “Man of the Year” award for outstanding service to youth in 1970.

Orlando and McCoy Air Bases begin phase-out; Navy prepares to open training base.1970: 22,000 students enroll at new Florida Technological University.

It was fueled by the building boom in Orange County and great optimism that preceded the opening of Walt Disney World in 1971 and, soon after, Universal Studios and Sea World.

Black Achievers was created at the Harlem (NY) YMCA in 1971 by a volunteer, Doctor Leo B. Marsh, to honor African-American men and women who were leaders and influencers in the community.

To expand its operations and retire debt, the Association launched another capital campaign in 1972.

In 1972, the West Orange extension became a full branch YMCA and obtained use of a Ramada Inn pool for swimming lessons, plus two second-floor rooms for its offices.

Thompson herself, an Orlando resident since 19 70 and founder of the Association to Preserve African American Society, History, and Tradition, would learn to swim at the downtown YMCA in 1973.

Following acquisitions in other cities, the bank became SunBank in 1973 and, with $1 billion in deposits, was instrumental in financing Florida’s boom.

Lewis, 49, started at 8 a.m. on a late summer Sunday in 1973.

A YMCA formed in Osceola County in 1974, west of Kissimmee’s Thacker Elementary School.

In 1974 the Osceola YMCA, which also served St Cloud, obtained $476,000 in a very successful capital campaign to construct an outdoor pool and multi-purpose courts, dressing rooms, a small multi-purpose area, and office space.

By 1974, this popular branch had grown so crowded that it was forced to hold classes outdoors.

Max Cooke becomes CEO of Orange County YMCA.1974: Orange County Association becomes YMCA of Central Florida.

Camp Wewa had a distinctive Native-American theme. It even drew children whose parents could well afford to send them to camps outside Florida. “That was the thing you had to do in summertime; kids would go for two weeks,” recalled Wallace C. Hughes, Metro Board chairman in 1974, whose children were among the campers at Wewa.

The matter was handled sensitively by Board Chairman Robert Smith, a well-known artist and illustrator for Ford Temes who was known professionally as Robert Curran, and Cooke departed at the end of 1975.

Three body measurements were taken to determine an individual’s body fat, supporting the Central branch’s weight-loss initiative introduced in 1975.

In 1975, he tried again, logging 40 hours in the Winter Park YMCA pool-but his occasional five-minute breaks eliminated him from consideration.

In autumn 1976, it asked permission from the Winter Park zoning commission to rezone its property on the north side of Palmer Avenue, where it had bought five houses with a grant from the Edyth Bush Charitable Foundation.

In 1976, the South Orlando YMCA expanded a second time by adding outdoor lighted courts for basketball, racquetball, and tennis; a sun shelter; and an expanded pool deck Turning to its large membership of 3,500, this Y asked each family to donate $250 to its building fund.

US war ends in Vietnam, and Orlando receives first Vietnamese refugees.1976: Former McCoy AFB Jet Port becomes Orlando International Airport.

With a match of $225,000 from the CFCFC, South Orlando began construction in 1977 on a $600,000 indoor facility.

In 1977, the West Volusia YMCA in DeLand, managed by the Central Florida Association for five years and now also serving northern Orange County, asked to join the Association as a formal branch.

In 1977, Phillips hired Willie Williams – the Association ‘s first African -American staff member – to run YMCA child care programs in schools north of Orlando, a predominantly black area.

The Northwest branch was finally phased out in 1978, when its Wewa Outdoor Center became part of the newly designated Camping Services branch.

Bill Phillips becomes CEO of YMCA of Central Florida.1978: Florida Technological University is renamed University of Central Florida.

By 1980, the Walt Disney World complex had become the world’s largest tourist draw.

In 1980 it added a small, 7,000-square foot gym and office area, but the gym had only a concrete floor because the branch couldn’t finance the standard wood flooring.

The Tangelo Park outreach program became a full-fledged YMCA Family Center in January 1982, when the community invited the Association to operate a newly built neighborhood center of some 4,000 square feet.

He retired in 1984 as the majority stockholder in the $70 million family construction enterprise his father had founded, which was subsequently sold to a global company with $400 million in annual revenues.

Also in 1985, the South Lake County YMCA extension program in Clermont became a branch, with Mary Jamison as its executive director.

In 1985, he founded and chaired the Martin Luther King Commission in Orlando, which organized a parade of kids from all local youth agencies on the national school holiday commemorating the slain civil rights leader.

In 1986, the YMCA formally asked the CFCFC to fund six branch extension projects.

DIANE BLAIR, FORMER executive director of the Golden Triangle branch, returned when its first building opened in 1988 and spoke about the community spirit that created it.

IN 1989, AS Mikhail Gorbachev was implementingperestroika in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Haralson made a trip to Russia.

In 1991, still in need of capital funds at the Downtown, West Orange, and West Volusia branches, the Association mounted a $2.3 million drive, but the effort fell short.

The Winter Park branch assumed supervision in 1991 of a YMCA extension in nearby Oviedo.

HEEDING A CALL from Houston, Laws departed as metro executive director at the end of 19 72 to head the YMCA in that Texas city, where he remained until he retired in 1992.

IN 1992, THE Central Florida YMCA moved to serve another disadvantaged community, Pine Hills, when it acquired a recreation center on Jennings Avenue formerly owned by the Robinswood Civic Association.

Pressed for facilities, Marion County YMCA volunteers launched a $1.5 million fund drive in 1992 led by David Denyer, chair of its board of managers, and Jim Williams, who chaired the fundraising effort.

Also in 1992, the Central Florida YMCA forged a unique partnership when the Golden Triangle branch entered into a joint venture with the private Waterman Hospital, constructing a 12,000-square-foot addition to the YMCA in Tavares as both a fitness center and physical therapy out-patient unit.

To gain more support for these expansion efforts, the Association initiated a membership drive in 1992.

The branch opened its $761,000 addition in 1992 with the largest multipurpose space in any Central Florida YMCA at the time, featuring three new athletic courts for basketball, volleyball, and racquetball.

An unforeseen opportunity came about in 1992, when local swimmers found themselves abruptly locked out of one of Orlando’s best pools.

Doctor Phillips Inc. would name the Central Florida YMCA its primary beneficiary in 2002, allocating 30 percent of its annual giving to the Association for major construction and expansion of branches.

Ruffier, a West Virginia native and a relative newcomer to town, realized he was joining a great crowd. “These guys were pillars of the community,” he observed in a 2003 interview.