LUZERNE COUNTY, Pa. — After operating independently for more than 100 years, two Luzerne County YMCAs are planning to merge.
The Greater Pittston YMCA on North Main Street in Pittston and the Wilkes-Barre Familyl YMCA on South Franklin Street in Wilkes-Barre have announced plans to merge the two organizations with one goal in mind.
"Enhance a lot of the programming, offering it to more people, broader geographic, and also within our own communities, better service, all the children, specifically that are in need for the YMCA services," said John Morris, board chairman.
"We're going to be able to offer all of our programs and services in both communities. And so it's kind of like combining two things, putting them together. We're going to have a little bit bigger reach, because there's more people that we can serve, and our programs will hopefully grow, and examples like our swim team will have a group of kids now that will be from Pittston and a group of kids from Wilkes-Barre, and they'll both compete on the same name; we'll have a little larger team," said Jim Thomas, Greater Wilkes-Barre YMCA
People with the YMCA tell Newswatch 16 they hope that this merger will not only benefit members but employees, too.
"For instance, childcare will have a possible person over both of them, but now you need a site director at each one so you can promote from within and help keep people, whereas a lot of times, you know, you may lose somebody to another facility because you didn't have any growth opportunities for them," Morris said.
Both locations will remain open and members will be able to work out, attend programs, or use services provided at both facilities. Leaders with the YMCAs say the two facilities already collaborated on some programs, so this decision was easy.
"It took us a lot of work, but yes, when we finally got to that point, it was a no-brainer and we were able to do a lot of things together that we weren't able to do individually. I think the geographic reach, as well as the further reach within both communities, will be a lot greater," Morris added.
YMCA officials say they are going to be working over the next 90 days to determine when the merger may actually happen and what it means for membership and service pricing, but they hope to make it the same between both locations.