By Torin Record-Sand
Reporting for West Seattle Blog
“Think about it as pledging to build a future that you want to see,” said board member Quinn Carr during Thursday night’s annual West Seattle/Fauntleroy YMCA annual-fundraising-drive kickoff. “We’re building legacies – you may have the next city councilmember or governor here [at the Y]. We’re all getting older, but because of that, we need to prepare the next generation to be the stewards we want to see, so that when it’s our time […] we know we’re in good hands.”
The Thursday night event at the Fauntleroy YMCA site represents the start of the Y’s fundraising season for 2026 into early 2027. This year, they are seeking around $131,250 for various programs.
Though, as event leaders from the West Seattle/Fauntleroy Cleveland King II (branch executive, above left), and Claiborne Bell (WS YMCA board member, above right) joked, they would be happy to take home “50 million dollars.” Dinner and refreshments were served to a full house of around 100 people, many from local West Seattle community organizations as well as the YMCA itself.
The speakers for the evening pointed to four key programs as defining pillars of community contribution from the YMCA. These programs were youth sports, aquatics education, camping and outdoors education, and a recent partnership between the YMCA and the Salvation Army to support survivors of domestic abuse.
The first of these speakers was Jonathan Lee, a coach for various youth sports at the YMCA, who spoke about their importance. He said he has been coaching for more than four years at the YMCA, sometimes even with his own son in the programs. “Coaching younger players at YMCA is a meaningful way to build foundation [for their lives],” he said. “I like to talk a lot about the three Es: energy, effort, and enthusiasm.” These three concepts, he said, were the solid foundation which youth sports provides – something applicable not only to games, but to the future life of the young people he coached. “You can win almost every game with great effort, energy, and enthusiasm. It is hard to win with two of the three, and rare to win with only one.”
The next speaker was Catherine Earley, the aquatics program executive at the YMCA. She provided grim, sobering statistics on the necessity of learning to swim, such as the disparity between racial demographics on the fatal drowning rate, and the fact that drowning is the 5th leading cause of accidental injury death across all ages. “Swimming lessons save lives – participation lowers risk of drowning by 88%,” she said. She noted that the YMCA is America’s largest swimming instructor, teaching more than 13,000 people each year how to swim.
Jason Lane, senior executive director for camping and outdoor programs, spoke about the outdoor programs briefly. He noted that the Greater Seattle YMCA served over 25,000 youth in outdoor programs in 2025, at their locations such as Camp Colman and Camp Orkila. “These programs give kids community awareness, social and emotional intelligence, self-confidence, courage, and wonder for the natural world. They create lifelong roots for an interest in the outdoors and healthy living.” he said. He also highlighted the direct impact fundraising can have: “For every 500 dollars we raise, it can send a single youth for a full week, and 300 dollars do the same for a 3- or 4-day program in environmental education.”
West Seattle/Fauntleroy branch executive Cleveland King stepped up next to talk about the YMCA’s recent efforts to partner with the Salvation Army to help support children and families affected by domestic violence. “For me, it was a no-brainer.” he said. He shared a deeply intimate and personal story about dealing with domestic violence in his youth, moving frequently from house to house in the Seattle area to avoid a violent father. This, he said, gave him a special impetus to look on how to create a partnership to help families suffering from the same issues he faced as a child. “We want these kids to have an escape – to go play sports, to go camping, to go and just learn how to swim. […] We also want these parents to have a chance to escape what they’ve been going through, to come to the Y, work out, relieve stress, and have peace of mind that their kid is safe. It’s really important for me to be able to help someone else, help someone who they don’t have to endure some of the things I had to endure as a child, and to give them a better way.”
Quinn Carr, board member, delivered the closing remarks, which once again highlighted the necessity of these programs. “The aquatics program, camping, domestic violence – all these things have something in common – you are funding and building a foundation for our children.” he said.
The dinner itself also highlighted the contributions of a local community figure. Not only is Claiborne Bell a board member for the West Seattle YMCA, he is also a local entrepreneur. The food was catered from his Distinguished Foods facility, headquartered across the street from the West Seattle Y.
If you’d like to give to the local YMCA as part of their annual fundraiser, you can find their donation page here.