Statement of Kenneth L. Gladish National Executive Director YMCA of the USA
United States Senate Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies July 15, 2004 “Preventing Chronic Disease Thru Healthy Lifestyles”
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
I am Ken Gladish and I serve as the National Executive Director of the YMCA of the USA. Secretary Thompson, thank you for being so outspoken in your support of programs that prevent chronic diseases. Your leadership by example has been extraordinary. Senator Specter, Senator Harkin, and members of this subcommittee, thank you for your genuine commitment to ensuring that disease prevention programs remain funded and a priority for this Congress. We know there are many programs vying for your support and everyone in this room thanks you for keeping health promotion at the top of your list.
The broad challenge of finding a healthier, more life-enhancing way to live demands a fundamentally new and aggressive social response. No longer can we afford to think of America’s health and wellness as the sole responsibility of the medical and public health profession. Collectively, all sectors of our communities and nation must come together to advance a common strategy and sincere commitment to chronic disease prevention in order to remove the barriers and increase the supports for healthy living for all of the kids and families of our great country.
As America’s oldest and largest community-based, charitable organization with a core mission focus on healthy living, the YMCA is committed to organizing a broad based movement to help Americans find healthier ways to live. Indeed, as a leading American charity, it is our civic and community responsibility that calls us to act and demand the best efforts of our fellow nonprofits and the entire philanthropic sector. Our tax-exemption provided by the government and the trust afforded us by the American public, manifested through volunteer hours and donated dollars, demands our response to this public crisis. I have attached a chart to my written testimony that is submitted for the record which shows the depth and breadth of the YMCA movement and our unique qualifications for tackling this issue.
Let me be clear: the nation’s 2,575 local YMCAs see the obesity and chronic disease crisis in this country as the issue that will define our organization’s role in society for years to come. Just as YMCAs’ responded to the shortage of childcare in the 1970’s – quickly becoming the nation’s largest provider of childcare – we are now galvanized around the need to collectively respond to society’s great struggle to live healthier and happier.
Recognizing our public and moral responsibility to fully engage ourselves in the battle against obesity and related chronic diseases, the YMCA has launched a long-term initiative, called YMCA Activate America™. This effort has three core principles:
One -- we will take a more holistic approach to health. YMCAs will strengthen their long-standing commitment to health through spirit, mind and body.
Two -- we will develop parallel program and public policy strategies. YMCAs will help their communities, states, and the nation, develop and implement policies to encourage healthy living.
Three -- we will embrace collaboration as a core methodology. YMCAs will reach out to, and work more effectively with, government, business, health, foundations, and academic and research sectors, among others.
The first plank of this effort is an internally-focused, three-year research and development effort aimed at developing new YMCA operational and program strategies to support healthy living by all Americans – especially youth and racial, ethnic and low-income groups at greatest risk. In addition to receiving expert advice from the CDC and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, we are investing millions of our own dollars and are partnering with scientists at Harvard and Stanford University to better understand and respond to the central question: “What does a person need to sustain positive lifestyle health changes?” This effort is no less than a complete re-tooling of how YMCAs serve our 19 million members.
The second plank of this effort is an external effort aimed at broad community mobilization and is why I am before you today. The centerpiece of this external effort will be a national conference this September in Washington, DC. Through the support of our committed and engaged corporate partners – JCPenney Afterschool and the Kimberly-Clark Corporation – 14 projects are being kicked-off today in 14 states involving diverse communities from throughout the country. Each community will be represented by a team of civic, business and public leaders that include YMCAs and other sectors of the community, such as public health, schools, businesses, park and recreation departments, faith-communities, and philanthropic and academic institutions. The community leadership teams will participate in the September conference to learn best practices and create action plans aimed at promoting healthier living. Two of the cities that will participate in the conference are with me this morning: Des Moines, Iowa, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In a moment you will hear from leaders from each of these cities who will explain why they are involved in the YMCA Activate America™ conference and what they hope to accomplish in their community.
At our conference, we will not be reinventing the wheel by creating a new model for community mobilization. There are plenty of successful models already available that the YMCA Activate America™ communities will be able to learn from and adopt. For example, the federal REACH program – funded through CDC – has been in existence for several years and supports local programs aimed at eliminating racial and ethnic health disparities. We know this program is successful and CDC officials will attend our conference and help our communities understand why REACH works and what they need to do to achieve similar success in their community. The same is true for Secretary Thompson’s Steps to a HealthierUS program and Active Living By Design, a program funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Each of these three programs will serve as templates for our communities to follow and replicate.
Let me be clear that this effort is not about getting more people into YMCAs. In fact, a true measure of success will be helping people understand that physical activity is not something that must be done only in a Y facility, but something that must be incorporated into everyday living. This effort is about each community leveraging available resources through existing fine organizations like the Y’s, the Parks and Recreation Departments, along with programs offered by disease prevention organizations such as the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, AARP , the Public Health Departments and others. YMCAs along with like-minded organizations will work with government and community leaders to design a community approach to improving the health and wellness of our citizens, lowering health care cost in our country and creating strong kids, strong families and strong communities.
Fortunately, at the federal level we have leaders like you who understand that community-based and community-led programs provide the only chance of creating lasting behavior change. Senator Specter – who has long-championed community health promotion programs -- and Senator Harkin – who recently introduced YMCA-endorsed legislation that contains many excellent provisions aimed at strengthening community-based health programs – are both to be commended for your leadership and vision. I thank you for holding this hearing and I look forward to our continued work together.
