Salem News
By Cate Lecuyer
April 14, 2008

The YMCA of the North Shore's annual meeting was as much about the past as it was about the future.

In honor of the nonprofit's 150th anniversary, YMCA members read passages from a book with handwritten original minutes from 1858 that had to do with how the Salem YMCA was founded. The nonprofit also displayed old photographs and featured a video of Edward McMillan, an 88-year-old Wenham resident and Sterling YMCA member who talked about his time as a prisoner of war in Germany during World War II, and how a man from a Swedish YMCA supplied him with books, musical instruments, food and clothes while he was there.

Moving into the present, Scott Beyer replaced Dudley Miller as the new president of the YMCA of the North Shore board of directors, and George Leiser, associated with the Cape Ann YMCA, received the Volunteer of the Year Award primarily for his involvement with creating a teen center in Rockport that opened last year.

With a focus on the future, Communications and Marketing Director Stephanie Lyons said the YMCA plans to give away $1.5 million this year toward discounted programs, membership and camps and will continue to provide affordable housing and service to the local community for another 150 years.

PDF Documents: Our web site contains several .pdf documents. If you do not have Adobe Acrobat, please click here for a free download.