The Y in Greater Cincinnati
Learn more about the programs, people, and commitments behind the YMCA's support of Cincinnati Public Radio.
Youth Development
YMCA Cincinnati Community Learning Centers
In ten Cincinnati Public Schools, YMCA Cincinnati Community Learning Centers connect students and families with resources, support, and opportunities close to home. These centers work at the intersection of education and community, helping schools serve not just students, but the neighborhoods around them.
From resource navigation to family support services, Community Learning Centers are part of how the Y shows up where people are, not just where they can find us.
Legacy Giving
Investing in What Comes Next
Some of the most meaningful contributions to this community will never appear in an annual report. Through the YMCA’s Heritage Club, planned gifts from Greater Cincinnati residents help sustain programs, strengthen neighborhoods, and create opportunities for families who haven’t arrived yet.
The Heritage Club has honored this kind of long-view generosity since 1980. August is Make-a-Will Month — a natural time to start the conversation about what a legacy gift could look like for you.
Civic Leadership
Civic Leadership, Practiced
Democracy is not just something young people inherit. It is something they learn to participate in — through debate, through listening, through the hard work of turning an idea into a position and a position into action.
Through Youth in Government, the Y gives students the structure and the space to do exactly that. From local mock legislatures to the national Council on National Affairs in Washington, D.C., participants learn that civic life is not something that happens to them. It is something they shape.
Arts & Youth Development
A Place to Create, and to Belong
In East Walnut Hills, the Music Resource Center is open every weekday afternoon. Teenagers write songs, record tracks, learn instruments, and work with mentors who take their artistry seriously.
90%
of students report feeling a sense of belonging at the MRC
In a region where arts programming in schools has steadily declined, that number reflects something the Y hears consistently: young people need more than instruction. They need a place that feels like theirs. The MRC has been that place since 2007.
Camp & Outdoor Education
Since 1928
Camp Ernst started with 100 acres in Burlington, Kentucky and a belief that a summer outdoors could change the course of a young person’s life. That belief has held for nearly a century.
4,000+
campers every summer — 100th anniversary coming in 2028
Today campers swim in the same lake, walk the same trails, and gather around the same campfires that generations of Greater Cincinnati families remember.
Building Belonging Together
What the Y Is Building
Belonging is not a program. It is a condition — one that has to be created intentionally, across neighborhoods, institutions, and generations.
$130M
committed over three years to the Building Belonging Together initiative
That work is underway now, across every branch, every partner school, and every community the Y serves. Across Greater Cincinnati, the YMCA serves neighborhoods, schools, camps, and community spaces where people of every background can find support, connection, and opportunity.