Focused on providing access for all community members, the Dan McKinney Family YMCA honors its history.
Expanding its footprint in La Jolla not only physically but also in community reach, the Dan McKinney Family YMCA at 8355 Cliffridge Ave. has spent the last almost-60 years dedicated to improving lives.
On Saturday, Sept. 21, staff, members, donors and volunteers will gather to honor the significance of the facility’s 60th anniversary and continued success in delivering what YMCA Association Director of External Communications Dan Cruz calls “a world class experience for this community.”
Details about the celebration are forthcoming; click here to learn more.
The event was “really inspired by our board,” said Vince Glorioso, the executive director of the Dan McKinney YMCA since 2019.
Board members wanted to use the 60th anniversary as a “way to connect,” Glorioso said. “We want to bring people back from over the years.”
Long-running, far-reaching legacy
Another part of the concept of the celebration is to celebrate the six decades “of impact we’ve had in the community,” said YMCA Development Director David Lang.
“The families and seniors have sought this location as a way to get their lives back into a place where they’re feeling good,” he said.
Using the traditional YMCA model of addressing “spirit, mind and body,” the Dan McKinney Y is “a facility unlike any other in the La Jolla community,” Cruz said, qualifying that in terms of how many children have learned to swim here, the number of seniors in the aqua fitness classes, the number of families accessing the numerous programs and more.
And while a YMCA membership is” definitely affordable” at $67 monthly for an individual or $115 monthly for a family, the La Jolla location provided about $350,000 in aid via between scholarships and program subsidies in 2023, Glorioso said, continuing a tradition of improving access for all.
“Many people here are actually here because of the scholarships we provide,” Lang said. “That’s what makes the membership accessible.”
The Dan McKinney Family YMCA also serves as a regional center, where children with special needs can access many inclusion services, from lessons, activities, childcare programs and adaptive services.
“We work … to accommodate everybody,” Cruz said.
And that “everybody” – which currently includes 5,300 members – has free reign of the massive facility, which debuted its all-new basketball gym in March where the previous gymnastics center was, complete with shiny new floors and lines for basketball, pickleball and other games already in heavy rotation.
“It’s brand new, but it’s been really popular,” Cruz said.
And a few months prior to that, the gymnastics center moved into its new digs in the previous basketball courts, outfitted with all the equipment needed to keep the YMCA’s numerous athletes at the top of their performance.
The location switching was a move necessitated by groundwater collecting under and warping the old wooden basketball floors, Cruz said, as they sit a few feet below ground level.
On an extensive tour of the entire grounds, staff proudly showed lajolla.ca the abundance of other amenities, from fitness classes, swimming pools for aqua fitness and competition, splash pad for children, extensive gym equipment, preschool campus, outdoor recreation spaces and more.
“Coming to the YMCA is a social experience,” Cruz said. “YMCA provides that community.”
Cultivating community
Glorioso, who has 24 years of experience with YMCA, began his career at the La Jolla location. Coming back as executive director 19 years later “felt like home,” he said, adding his kids attended camp there, his family had swim lessons there and have “done all the things.”
It’s a familiar refrain throughout the facilities.
“I’ve been at the Dan McKinney location since I was six,” said gymnastics coordinator Caitlin Sanders. “I grew up here and then when I turned 16, I got a job here right away. I’ve been working here … more than 10 years.”
What keeps Sanders at the YMCA is the “sense of family and making connections throughout other departments,” she said.
“There’s a lot of pride in working here,” Cruz said.
That pride extends to all positions, Glorioso noted, as there are board members who were members as children and summer camp staff who came through the YMCA’s summer camps, which serve 500 students each week.
“We have members that have been members for over 40 years who come regularly,” he said. “A blessing of this branch is just the community and the longevity and the generational participation that we have.”
Dropping her child at the preschool, parent Linsey Sala said “I just feel happy to go into work every day [knowing] I have a safe, warm place for my child to be.”
The breadth and quality of activities offered at the Dan McKinney Family YMCA also contributes to its lasting place in La Jolla, Cruz said.
“We care about this community. We want people to live their best lives,” he said.
Changing times, changing names
What’s now the expansive La Jolla campus began in 1964 as the Northwest YMCA, originally a field office in Clairemont, Glorioso said, moving to the Cliffridge spot when community organizations wanting a pool built next to the La Jolla Youth Baseball League fields approached the YMCA to oversee funding and administration.
The inception “was really just a pool and some administrative space,” Glorioso said.
Within five years, the gymnasium was built, he said, followed by racquetball courts, a fitness center and studio, along with a youth development classroom and four tennis courts, all completed by the mid-1970s.
“From there, there were just a lot of small improvements that were built on,” he said.
In the 1980s, another change: a renaming to the La Jolla YMCA.
Subsequent decades saw spaces converted for children as the demand for childcare grew. In the early 2000s, a new studio was added.
The basketball court gymnasium, now replaced, was built in 2007.
In 2014, the La Jolla YMCA launched a $20 million capital campaign “to rebuild the entire site,” Glorioso said; the first component to open was the new pool and aquatic center in 2016.
That’s also about the time the facility was renamed a final time, after naming donor Dan McKinney, a longtime La Jolla resident with a history of generous YMCA support.
The new YMCA opened in 2017, with fresh community rooms, new patio, locker rooms and the conversion of the racquetball courts into the preschool wing.
This also meant none of the spaces from the 1964 origins remain on the site, Glorioso said: everything has been reconstructed and shifted from its original location.
There are now outdoor spots for Easter egg hunts, PeeWee soccer, community barbecues and the like and indoor spaces rare for YMCAs like a cafe, a quiet work/study area, a teaching kitchen and more.
“There’s so many different things for all the different groups that we serve,” Cruz said.
Looking ahead
As the Dan McKinney Family YMCA enters the next 60 years, Glorioso plans to continue expanding the programs offered, broadening into a “holistic well being,” he said, incorporating Reiki healing, sound healing and similar modalities.
The YMCA is also working to strengthen its current partnerships, such as with the Veterans Affairs Department, which brings trainers to the Y for veterans, who receive a 12-week membership and discounts, along with exposure to a variety of health classes.
There’s also the Livestrong program, which offers classes to cancer survivors.
UC San Diego is partnering with the La Jolla YMCA to lead seminars for the senior population, said Dan McKinney YMCA associate executive director Lucy Murillo, seminars that will be held at the Cliffridge location as well as its ancillary building, the Firehouse YMCA on Herschel Avenue in The Village.
Growing the Firehouse programming is another step in Glorioso’s plans for the future.
Citing previous Firehouse offerings like a gym space, childcare and more, Glorioso said the YMCA is “seeking the community to help us to determine what exactly this space is going to be.”
Community involvement for community enhancement? The YMCA in La Jolla knows it well.
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