How the single-branch Missoula Family YMCA serves as the community backbone for Western Montana.
Despite being the fourth-largest state by land mass in the U.S., there are only six YMCAs in all of Montana.
With hundreds of square miles between these community rec centers, each organization must work tirelessly to support members across their large regions.
This is the case of the Missoula Family YMCA. With just one branch in its association, the Y’s service area extends over 15 counties to support an estimated 15,000 Montanans.
What may seem like an insurmountable task is just the daily order of business for CEO Heather Foster and her team. The Y is currently thriving in this climate, as the organization is near the completion of a $20 million capital campaign to construct an expanded campus, further maximizing the Y’s gritty spirit.
“The task is to be all things to all people,” said Foster. “When we think about how we bring a community of people together, we’re constantly trying to figure out how do we serve a diverse group who typically doesn’t intersect? The answer is we’re small but mighty. We’ve been around our community for 55 years. Our Y’s origins are very grassroots. We started in a donated little shack on a piece of county land.”
Trial by Fire
Foster has worked at the YMCA for a little over 10 years, but when she first started as the HR director, she barely knew anything about the YMCA.
She was born and raised in Montana and grew up in a small town with no recreation center close by. Foster previously worked at a for-profit resort just outside of Missoula, but the work failed to fill her soul. That’s when the power of the YMCA stepped in.
“The HR job at the Y was available, so I interviewed, really liked the CEO and took the job,” said Foster. “Probably two months in, he came in and said, ‘You’re hooked. You’re never leaving. I can tell you love this place.’”
Nearly four years later, she was named the interim CEO in 2018 and had to lead the organization through several challenging periods. This included a national news story on a former employee’s drug use at the Y, the COVID-19 pandemic and the beginning of an incredibly ambitious capital campaign.
“It was truly trial by fire,” said Foster. “We just tried to keep things moving. We were in the limelight in not a great way for a long time. It was a terrifying leadership experience. So, we had a lot of dialogue around what does drug use and abuse look like in our community? How do we train everybody to look for red flags so we can intervene earlier? We kind of went from that to around six months of stability, and then COVID-19 hit. We got through all of that and we knew we could keep this going strong.”
While the beginning of Foster’s tenure was filled with tribulations, it showed the Y what type of leader she was at one of the largest employers in the county.
“To serve over 15,000 unique individuals, it takes an incredible leader like Heather Foster,” said Melanie Brock, a YMCA board member. “Heather’s enthusiasm for the Y’s mission to create a safe, welcoming space where everyone can thrive is contagious and inspires the hundreds of Y volunteers to pitch in. She’s built an incredible team of dedicated staff who roll up their sleeves and tackle every task with a smile on their faces. Under Heather’s leadership, the Missoula Y staff and board truly have evolved into a family and a community backbone.”
Dream It, Build It
With the right leader and team in place, it was time to complete one of the biggest capital campaigns in Missoula’s history.
Foster said the organization had been talking about a capital campaign for at least 15 years. Before she arrived there were nearly a dozen different iterations of plans. The previous childcare center’s space was too small for a growing community, creating a very large waiting list for the Y’s services.
“Missoula, and Montana overall, has experienced a period of rapid growth since 2020, resulting in a shortage of attainable housing and affordable childcare,” said Brock. “Because the Missoula Y steps up for Missoula at every turn, Missoula stepped up for the Y when we outgrew our aging main campus building and needed a major capital campaign to better serve Missoula. We set out to make the Y better equipped to accommodate the additional 20,000-plus new residents who’re projected to move here.”
Along the way, the community asked for vital pieces to be added to the project, including an all-abilities playground and free water feature that were value-engineered into the $20 million project.
The outcome is a record-breaking capital campaign almost entirely raised from private philanthropists and foundations.
“We kept pushing and got together an influential group of people in our community,” said Foster. “A lot of them were involved in building the original Y, and they came back to the table and said, ‘Let’s set this place up for the next 50 years. It’s time for this Y to evolve. It’s time for it to be able to serve more people as we were busting at the seams in all spaces.’ There was a time where many thought there’s no way we’re going to pull this off. It feels pretty good to be where we’re at. We’re looking at a September 2025 grand reopening.”
Pouring Into Youth
When the expanded YMCA campus opens, Foster is looking forward to the new features that will appeal to children ages 7 through 12. She said the Y has heard from the community while there’s many things for kids to do when they’re very little, they’re not coming into the health and wellness spaces until around middle school age.
“We had a gap in services for kids ages 7 to 12,” said Foster. “There weren’t places in our building designed for them. So, we worked with our university here to create an esports gaming space and a podcast music mixing sound booth, and a maker space that will have everything from Legos to robotics.”
This commitment to youth is nothing new for the Y. In fact, Foster described her organization as being heavy on youth development with well over half of those 15,000 serviced Montanans being under the age of 18.
Keri McHugh, the COO at the Missoula Family YMCA, said the primary reason why their childcare model is so strong is because it’s designed to support the entire family unit.
“As we all know, one of the biggest barriers to quality child care is the expense,” said McHugh. “In addition to having YMCA financial assistance available, our centers are also licensed. This allows families in need to access additional scholarships through our state. We strive to ensure children are kindergarten-ready when they leave our centers. A couple additional elements that make us unique, and are really the cherry on top: we provide homemade breakfast, lunch and snacks — including formula for babies — to all our families.”
This level of commitment is one of the main reasons why Foster said the association continues to be well-positioned to meet the community’s projected growth. Currently, the Missoula Family YMCA is the single largest childcare provider in the state. It’s also the largest employer of teens in Western Montana.
“We’re quick to adjust to what our community says they need from us,” said Foster. “Childcare is something we put at the forefront of our capital campaign because we have a desert. Our board and team are pretty intentional about saying we need to be a sustainable organization, but if we’re really going to serve our community, we need to look for the gaps. We need to stand in them. Childcare is one of those gaps, and we subsidize our early childcare programs because they’re integral to the Y’s mission.”
Everywhere, Everyone
The Missoula Family YMCA’s robust youth programming came out of communicating regularly with the community to seek those possible blind spots.
Foster said the organization made sure not to get tied up in what its vision looks like. Instead, they got real feedback from the community of what was needed.
“I think that was really important for us and helped us be successful,” said Foster. “If we wouldn’t have had the group of people who could make the phone calls to connect us to people in our community with means to support our ideas like our capital campaign, we would’ve never been able to do anything.”
It’s through that campaign the Y will be able to offer even more community gathering space that will continue to bring Western Montanans together. While the small association is at the heart of the community, it will soon offer even more intentional programming and a wider variety of services.
“For over five decades, when a community need arises the Y answers the call time and time again,” said Brock. “It’s been exciting to see the Y evolve to meet the needs of all ages and stages of all our residents, providing a real sense of belonging. We’ve grown well beyond the borders of the main campus. We bus kids from rural schools to participate in our SPLASH! program that teaches swimming and water safety to all third graders. The Y also partners with numerous nonprofits to ensure everyone has access. Collaboration, leadership and intentionality to meet people where they exist is how Y engagement has — and will continue to be — successful.”
