For the sixth straight year, participants in the Meeting Waters YMCA’s ASPIRE after-school program have made a significant donation to the Brattleboro Area Drop In Center. As part of the ASPIRE monthly theme for February, “Our Community,” more than 100 youth involved in the ASPIRE programs at Academy, Green Street and Oak Grove Schools in Brattleboro collected personal care items, toiletries and other necessities which will be distributed by the Drop In Center. They collected enough items to create 10 “Care Bags” for adult males, 10 for adult females, 10 for boys, 10 for girls and 10 for infants. The children also decorated the “Care Bags” before filling them. Several boxes of goods were also donated to the Drop In Center. The items were contributed by ASPIRE families, faculty at the three Brattleboro elementary schools, and Mr. G’s.

During the February vacation, when ASPIRE ran for full days, Melinda Bussino, Executive Director of the Brattleboro Area Drop In Center, visited with ASPIRE participants. She answered questions about who the Drop In Center serves, why people are poor and hungry, and what else they and their families can do to help. At the end of the discussion, ASPIRE participants and staff presented Bussino with the many boxes and bags of products they had collected.

The Meeting Waters YMCA is a charitable, social service organization founded in 1895. It is the region’s largest provider of state-licensed out-of-school care. It provides Brattleboro area children and their working parents with year-round “out-of-school” care–after-school each day and for full days on all school vacations, holidays and snow days during the school year, and for full days throughout the summer vacation months. In all, ASPIRE serves over 175 children and their working parents from five sites in Brattleboro, Bellows Falls and Chester. Over 400 youth ages 5-15 from over two dozen VT and NH communities attend a Meeting Waters YMCA camp each summer. These and all other Meeting Waters YMCA services are accessible to all, regardless of the family’s ability to pay the program fees. In 2006, Meeting Waters YMCA participants received over $200,000 in financial assistance and subsidized services.

More information about Meeting Waters YMCA is available at their website at www.meetingwatersymca.org or by calling their office nearest you–Brattleboro: 246-1036; Bellows Falls: 463-4769; or Springfield: 885-8131.