Butler YMCA membership rebounds to milestone number
Exercising in a group setting is a benefit Heidi Nicholls Bowser touts to prospective members at the Butler YMCA, 339 N. Washington St.
Nicholls Bowser, Butler YMCA’s healthy living and membership director, said research has shown that working out with other people stimulates the brain.
“Brain chemicals fire when people exercise together. People who exercise together are also the ones who stick with it,” Nicholls Bowser said.
She said her emphasis on this benefit is in part what led to the organization reaching 4,000 members earlier this month. It was a goal the YMCA set once COVID-19 restrictions began to ease.
“When you hit 4,000 members you feel it,” she said. “Our classes are busier, we are literally maxing out some of our water classes.”
Nicholls Bowser said memberships were at a high in March 2019, when the YMCA had close to 5,000 membership registrations. When the coronavirus pandemic began and public mandates were put in place, memberships fell to around 3,200.
A lot of the people who register for memberships at the YMCA are senior citizens, and Nicholls Bowser said she thinks that demographic saw the biggest drop in memberships in 2020 because of their heightened health risks.
That age group’s enrollment is rising again and Nicholls Bowser said water and pool exercise classes have been particularly popular lately. “Active older adult classes are all filling up.”
“We have like 1,000 seniors this year,” she said. “They were the at-risk demographic.”
The YMCA started posting video exercise classes during the pandemic, and while many of those have gone on hiatus now that more people are returning in-person, Nicholls Bowser said some will continue because of a small dedicated community of virtual attendees.
The influx of memberships has led the YMCA to plan adding more classes and hire new instructors to lead sessions. She said the YMCA could expand its programming further if membership continues to increase.
“We will add as many classes as we have to to accommodate what the community wants,” Nicholls Bowser said. “We are running about 50 a week, not including offsite (classes).” Based on the size of the community, she said, “That's a good number of classes.”
