(Spirit Lake)– The YMCA of the Okoboji’s continues to adapt with challenges posed by the pandemic. In his annual report earlier this week to the Dickinson County Board of Supervisors, Andrew Fischer said the organization began the year with hopes for one of its best years yet. But he says that quickly changed with the pandemic, as did their primary operations…
“This year, those numbers are a lot different. The impact is still very high and in some ways different. We’ve seen our organization shift in terms of providing priorities to food distribution, blood drives, providing space for immunization clinics to continue while our hospital was re-tooling for COVID-19. Our property even hosted a Test Iowa site for a number of months.”
Fischer says the decline in revenue resulted in some restructuring and closing the center in downtown Spirit Lake. The location at the corner of Lake Street and Hill Avenue remains for sale. Fischer says there also has been an impact on staffing. But he says they feel confident the YMCA will emerge from the pandemic in a healthy way…
“As we continue to evolve through the pandemic we have had to make a lot of operational changes to withstand this and give ourselves the best position to grow out of the pandemic in a healthy way for our county and our communities. And with that we are just continuing to say thank you to our community for the support that they’ve shown us through this time, to withstand this.”
And while there have been some changes in programs, Fischer says the YMCA of the Okoboji’s is continuing to offer some of the most important services to the community…
“We’re still providing childcare before and after school and summer care for families who need to work here. Still providing academic programs and partnerships with our school, youth activities, swim lessons, a number of those things and even some new programs came out of this year in terms of family opportunities utilizing Camp Foster in a way that it’s never been utilized before.”
Fischer estimates that due to the pandemic, the organization will lose roughly 45 percent of its projected revenue for 2020.
