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Show 700 YEARS OF BROTHERHOOD YMCA Charts Five-Part Program To Cover Rural Areas of Nation , (The second of two articles.) One hundred years ago the Young Men's Christian Association, Associa-tion, known familiarly to four generations gen-erations of Americans as the "Y", was founded in the U. S. to fight vice, degradation and delinquency in the cities. Now, in planning its next century, the YMCA is going to move into small towns and rural areas. The YMCA began aiding servicemen service-men during the Civil War. when Y workers, called "Christians" by the soldiers, followed both armies to serve decently cooked hot meals, help tend the wounded and Insist on the humane treatment of prisoners pris-oners of war. In the Spanish American Amer-ican War, they introduced doughnuts dough-nuts and coffee to soldiers. At one battle they arrived with their rations ra-tions some three hours, ahead of the troops! During World War I, the Y, according to General Pershing, Per-shing, performed 90 per cent of the welfare work for soldiers overseas over-seas and during the recent conflict, con-flict, as now, the YMCA comprised one-third of the soldier-service organization known as the U.S.O. The best of the Y's hundred years of experience will go into the new five-part program designed to cover cov-er non-urban areas. The organization organiza-tion will work this way: 1. The Small City Association, to operate as independent units in cities under 25,000 population. 2. The Town and Country Association, Asso-ciation, covering both farms and small towns in a single county or group of counties. 3. The County Branch, covering a rural area centered about a large city. 4. The Outreach Program, extending ex-tending from a thriving city YMCA to cover small neighboring communities. com-munities. 5. The District Program, all rural, ru-ral, directed by the state YMCA organization but sponsored socially nn 1 1 3 uauaaj ujr liic -ci vcu. ' FINANCIAL PROBLEMS, of course, will play a large part in the Y's scheduled rural drive. YMCA officials emphasize that the Y cannot can-not and will not begin at the outset out-set to construct large, streamlined buildings, with hotel space, gymnasium, gymna-sium, meeting rooms and swimming swim-ming pools in order to lure members. mem-bers. A YMCA, they explain, must first establish a firm spiritual foundation and a record for concrete con-crete service to the community before be-fore it can begin to think in terms of permanent headquarters. Instead, the organization burden will fall largely on the rural secretary, sec-retary, a YMCA career man who has been given special training for his job and, more likely than not, been educated at one of the Y's twenty-five degree-granting colleges. col-leges. He will begin, like the founders found-ers of the first YMCA in Boston in December of 1851, by interesting social-minded members of the community com-munity in the Y movement. He may work through churches of all denominations or through the public pub-lic schools. Depending upon how long he has been in the area he will spend three months to a year observing local conditions and then report lengthily to his superiors on how, in his opinion, the YMCA can best improve its foothold in your community and extend its services to the people who live there. The stated purpose of the Yj which is to develop Christian leadership lead-ership among the nation's youth, has already helped to mould the character of such YMCA alumni as President Truman, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Douglas, Gene Tun-ney, Tun-ney, Senator Robert Taft of Ohio and thousands of other figures of national importance. Its fondest hope 'for the future is that it can help to build similar qualities in the young men and women who must see the nation safely through its next hundred years. |