YMCA, Joliet Junior College partner for new youth programs

The Greater Joliet Area YMCA is expanding into another Joliet location as it makes plans to close a traditional facility in the city.

YMCA and Joliet Junior College officials this week celebrated a partnership that will bring youth programs into the Event Center at the college’s main campus on Houbolt Road.

“It gives the kids a chance to have their first on-campus experience,” Katy Leclair, president and CEO of the Greater Joliet Area YMCA, said at a Thursday event marking the collaboration between the two institutions. “For a lot of families, that college experience is out of reach.”

Young people in YMCA programs also have access to the modern sports facilities that JJC has to offer, Leclair said.

The JJC campus is located just down Houbolt Road from the Galowich Family YMCA, the last YMCA-owned facility in Joliet. The YMCA plans to close the Galowich building when it opens a new facility in 2026 that is under construction in Shorewood.

Closing Galowich will follow the closing of the Smith Family YMCA on Briggs Street in 2021.

“In Joliet, we see youth development as our core priority.”

—  Katy Leclair, president and CEO, Greater Joliet Area YMCA

The newest Greater Joliet Area YMCA buildings are in Plainfield, where the C.W. Avery Family YMCA opened in 2006, and in Morris, where the YMCA in a joint project with Morris Hospital opened a facility at the end of 2024.

Leclair said the YMCA is turning to community programs to serve Joliet, where traditional facilities have seen declining use.

She pointed to YMCA programs before and after school at Joliet Grade School District 86 schools that serve 340 children.

“In Joliet, we see youth development as our core priority,” Leclair said.

The partnership with JJC serves that goal.

Leclair and JJC officials emphasized that the partnership will give young people an introduction to the college experience along with access to the facilities and training available at the Event Center.

The building houses the JJC gym, an indoor turf facility for soccer and baseball training, a weight room and other facilities for sports training.

The YMCA now has an office in the Event Center with two windows overlooking the gym. The Event Center is on the edge of athletic fields that also will be available to the YMCA.

Those fields will be used for an NFL flag football program that begins in April and is run by the YMCA.

The Event Center also will be used for the YMCA’s Teen REACH Summer Camp.

“It’s a chance for our middle school students to see what JJC has to offer,” Leclair said of the camp.

JJC officials said the partnership serves the college’s efforts to become a growing part of the community.

JJC athletic director Greg Braun said the YMCA partnership fits with his goal to “bring the community to the campus and our campus to the community.”

YMCA youth going to Event Center programs will be designated “Junior Wolves.” JJC sports teams are named the Wolves.

Merging the JJC mascot with the YMCA program may create a future recruitment route for the college.

JJC officials said it is their way of increasing the college’s connection to the community.

The college has a PAWS in the Streets program in which student-athletes visit schools and give sports instruction.

Student-athletes also will serve as teachers and mentors in the YMCA programs, which will include sports camps, Braun said.

The experience should broaden the horizon for young people in the YMCA program, he said.

“Our goal is that young children will go on to great adventures in their lives,” Braun said. “It could be at a community college. It could be at a four-year university.”