Group child care was not started at a YMCA, but Ys moved swiftly to meet the
needs of a changed and changing society. Rosie the Riveter went back home after
World War II, but her daughter left and didn't look back. Today's YMCA movement
is the largest not-for-profit provider of child care, and is larger than any for-profit
chain in the country.
No one could have predicted that in the beginning. The origins of group child
care are obscure and we will probably never know who had the first group care
program. A strong possibility, however, is that group care grew out of gang prevention
and teen intervention programs in the 1960s. The Chicago YMCA had a strong youth
outreach program in the 1960s (Ys had been working with youth gangs in one way
or another since the 1880s). Workers noticed, however, that youths attending the
program often brought their younger siblings along because they were providing
care while their parents worked. Child care was organized so that the older kids
could attend these programs without concern or distraction.
Another impetus for group child care at the Y came from John Root, general secretary
(today he would be CEO) of the Chicago YMCA. Root had returned from a trip to
the Soviet Union, where he had observed firsthand the extensive child care programs
offered by the government and how the availability of child care benefited both
children and their families. Root was determined to have YMCAs do as much in America.
The idea quickly spread to other cities. In the 1990s, about half a million children
received care at a YMCA each year. In 1996, child care became the movement's second
largest source of revenue, after membership dues.
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