NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — David Foster with the Hutchinson YMCA said the Saturday Night at the Y program for middle schoolers was a success in the 2022-2023 school year.
"It went really well," Foster said. "We had 439 unduplicated students. Four hundred and thirty nine students came to at least one Saturday Night at the Y this year, so we think that's pretty successful and averages about 125 per event."
Buhler and Hutchinson had the most students attend with 225 Crusaders and 189 Salthawks, respectively. There were also 11 students from Nickerson and 14 from other schools.
"It actually worked really well with our facility," Foster said. "Obviously, we had a lot of community partners. We had both school districts, Buhler and Hutch, very involved, the Boys and Girls Club, obviously and we even had our July Saturday Night at the Y over at Salt City Splash thanks to Hutch Rec. We had a lot of community support."
The vast majority of those kids are not Y members.
"96% of the participants were non-members," Foster said. "I would say that was pretty successful. It was definitely a great outreach program. It did help us attract kids that maybe didn't ever have the opportunity to come to the Y or just didn't know that the Y was there and offered things for kids their ages to do."
The program for 6th, 7th and 8th graders will take September off due to the Kansas State Fair and start back up in October.
CLICK HERE to download the Hutch Post mobile app.
CLICK HERE to sign up for the daily Hutch Post email news update.