Southlake Family YMCA Breaks Ground on New Expansion

Southlake Family YMCA Breaks Ground on New Expansion

Few things are more rewarding than watching a community come together to support a worthy cause. For the Southlake Family YMCA, Thursday morning was full of support, promise and celebration. Members of the community gathered together to celebrate the groundbreaking for a massive expansion of the facility.

The expansion will take the facility from its current 40,000 square feet, to 120,000 square feet. It will also involve building renovations, new pools and state of the art upgrades to the facility as a whole.

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“We’ll have two indoor pools and an outdoor pool. We’re going to renovate the current building as well and be able to serve about 30,000 members a year. It will also make a big impact through programs that help the community for their health, diabetes, cancer support groups and other programs that help kids get the best start on their education,” said Jill Schaffenberger, Marketing Director for the Crossroads YMCA.

This massive expansion project has been made possible by a large donation by the White family of Crown Point. Craig and Cindy White Biestek, two of the children of Dean and Barbara White, were in attendance today to express their excitement regarding the project. The community project was a vision of the Late Dean White, and his family was honored to play a part in helping it come to fruition.

“One year ago, this very day, my father passed away,” began Craig White. “With this being the one-year anniversary of his passing, it couldn’t be more appropriate. He could not be happier looking down knowing what’s going on in Crown Point.”

Crown Point certainly is honoring the memory of Dean White. During the ceremony, Tom Hoffman, Corporate Board of Directors and Chief Volunteer Officer, announced their decision to rename the facility. The upgraded facility will now become the Dean and Barbara White Southlake YMCA. This renamed, and newly expanded YMCA will allow many more members of the community to receive the positive benefits the YMCA has to offer through programs and the facilities, which falls in line with the vision Dean White had for its future.

“This new facility will really transform this community and bring better health systems and better opportunities for diabetes prevention programs, Livestrong cancer programs, and really just raise the level of health for this community. This is a wonderful opportunity that we’ve all been blessed with,” said Laurie A. Halaska, CEO of Crossroads YMCA.

Improving the health of the community is front and center for this updated, state of the art facility. The community support and efforts have been an amazing testament to the determination and dedication this community has toward their health and community.

“When we see a project that needs a great effort from our city, everybody pushes in the right direction so that we can do many, many great things for the City of Crown Point,” said Mayor David Uran. He continued, commenting on the foggy weather, “I know we had a little bit of a fog delay; I look at that as a curtain that is being raised on the next addition to Crown Point.”

The curtain, and the bar, is certainly being raised in this community as they flock to support this project. With an outpouring of support and the funding to move forward on the project, this community certainly has a wonderful facility to look forward to.

“The amenities are going to be beautiful and state of the art, this will be a real destination for people even outside of Crown Point to come and enjoy themselves with their family,” said Schaffenberger.

For more information on the Southlake YMCA, visit: http://slymca.org/