The New Hope YMCA will close on Oct. 17, Frank P. Phillips YMCA Director Jimmy Woodruff confirmed Saturday.
“We sent an email to our members (Saturday morning) notifying them of the decision to close the New Hope branch,” Woodruff said. “The New Hope branch will be open on Oct. 17 and will be closed permanently at closing time that day.”
Woodruff said the Y’s board of directors decided to close the New Hope branch due to difficult economic conditions, much of it attributed to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Y’s downtown Columbus and Caledonia branches will not be affected by the decision, he said.
“This decision, we felt, puts us in the best position for the organization as a whole to continue to move forward and provide all the great services and ministries and the fitness activities we provide,” he said.
Woodruff declined to say how many employees would be affected by the closure or how many members the New Hope branch serves.
“I will point out that the members in New Hope are still Y members,” he said. “When you have a membership, you have access to all the facilities and programs at the other branches.”
The viability of the New Hope branch has been an issue previously.
In fact, in July of 2017, the board announced its plans to close the branch effective Aug. 31, 2017. A grassroots membership and donation drive caused the board to reverse its decision on Aug. 15, two weeks before the planned closure. At the time, the New Hope branch had a membership of roughly 300.
Five months later, in January of 2018, the board sold Camp Pratt, its 70-acre campsite facility, to Ron Harper, who owned adjacent property in southern Lowndes County, for an undisclosed amount of money.
Woodruff, who became the Y’s executive director in January, said no other major changes are anticipated for the organization.
“The only decision made was to close the New Hope branch,” Woodruff said. “We have no plans to do anything else other than to just keep doing what we’ve been doing for 90-plus years, which is to serve our community in a multitude of ways.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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