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Hernando Today

A Day For The Expanded YMCA

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By TONY MARRERO

Hernando Today

Published: January 17, 2009

SPRING HILL - Marina Smith is on the move, and her mother Rebecca has the energy to keep up.

The family has the YMCA to thank for helping make both of those things happen, Rebecca told a bundled-up crowd gathered Friday to celebrate a just-completed, $2.2 million expansion project of the facility on Mariner Boulevard.

Rebecca and her husband Andy adopted Marina, now 5, from Ukraine. The girl suffers from a blood disorder that prompted doctors there to amputate both feet.

She was a shy, lethargic child when Rebecca and her husband Andy moved to Spring Hill about two years ago. But she blossomed in the Y's KidZone, building up her strength playing with the other kids while Rebecca worked out.

"We started to see who Marina really was," Rebecca said as the little ski-capped girl circled the podium with the help of prosthetics and a walker. "Full of spunk and energy, sassy."

As for Rebecca, "I feel 20 years younger."

Now there is a lot more room for the Smiths and the rest of the more than 10,000 people who take advantage of the Y's facilities and activities.

The expansion and renovation project includes the addition of an 8,000-square-foot Wellness Center, a soaring space with a sea of whirring workout machines, clanking free weights and eight flat-screen televisions.

Moving the existing wellness center freed up space for a new spinning classroom, teen center complete with computers and a 2,000-square-foot multi-purpose room. And, like little Marina Smith, the KidZone has grown, doubling in size.

The project at the Y, 1300 Mariner Blvd., is the result of the latest phase of a fundraising effort dubbed "The Tomorrow Project" that began in 2006.

"Through your support and help, we believe we will able to touch the lives of thousands of children and families in our community and to use these facilities to help people grow in sprit, mind and body," Sue Ball, district vice-president of the YMCA of the Suncoast told the crowd.

The Y has come a long way since the early 1980s, when it offered classes and programs in local churches and gymnasiums, said Lew Friedland, one of the original board members and the keynote speaker at Friday's ribbon cutting.

A piece of donated land and an outpouring of support, from banks to concrete block manufacturers, helped make a permanent home for the Y and a swimming pool a reality, Friedland recalled.

"It was a true community effort," he said. "Watching the kids and everyone work out today makes it very humbling for us."

For more information on the YMCA of the Suncoast's Hernando facility, call 352-688-9622 or visit www.suncoastymca.org.

Reporter Tony Marrero can be reached at 352-544-5286 or lmarrero@hernandotoday.com.

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