BLOOMINGTON — For Christmas this year, Bloomington-Normal YMCA is giving its members a gift that will keep on giving.  The week after Christmas, Bloomington-Normal YMCA, 602, S. Main St., Bloomington, plans to open two new wellness centers, including a new family wellness center and a renovated adult wellness center.

The family wellness center will include new strength training and cardio equipment, and will be designed to give children ages 8 and older an opportunity to workout alongside their parents.
“The reason (for the family wellness center) is to be intentful in trying to reduce childhood obesity,” said B.J. Wilken, executive director of the Bloomington-Normal YMCA. “In addition to that, we’re also being intentful in creating an opportunity to instill healthy habits at an early age for children. And we want to be able to do that whereby the parent and child have an opportunity to workout and in engage in physical activity together.”
The adult wellness center on the first floor of the YMCA facility will be transformed into the family wellness center. The YMCA will combine the second floor cardio and free-weight rooms into a single, larger adult wellness center.
“We will just be renovating existing space,” said Wilken. “We will be renovating our existing wellness center to a family wellness center and then we’ll create an adult wellness center upstairs by renovating some spaces.”
The YMCA will replace the 16 pieces of strength training equipment currently located in the adult wellness center with 18 new pieces of equipment, including 12 adult-size pieces of equipment and six pieces of child-sized equipment.
“We’re going to mix those pieces of equipment within the room, so we’re not going to segregate the kids in one area and the adults in another area,” said Wilken. “It will look identical. The youth-sized equipment will look identical to the adult-sized.”
The old equipment will be donated to local schools.
The YMCA will purchase new cardio equipment for both the family wellness center and the adult wellness center.
“We will be purchasing new cross trainers, new treadmills and new ellipticals,” said Wilken.
A staff member will be available at the family wellness center during evenings to assist families with workout plans and teach them how to use the equipment.
“Individuals who really don’t prefer to be around kids when they’re working out,” can workout in the adult wellness center, said Wilken.
“The room will strictly be for adults only,” said Wilken. “You’ll have to be at least 16 years of age or older to be able to enter into that room.”
YMCA membership fees will not increase as a result of the opening of the wellness centers.
“If you’re a member of the YMCA you’ll have access to all of these different areas,” said Wilken.
Contributions from the Bloomington Normal YMCA Charitable Foundation, the Shirk Family Foundation and funds from other donors will cover the $125,000 that is needed to pay for the new equipment and renovations.
Work on both the family wellness and adult wellness centers will take place the week before Christmas.
To learn more about Bloomington-Normal YMCA, visit www.bnymca.org/bnymca/home.html.