I actually just recommended you guys to another parents, Kendall’s mom, Kim 😊 Thank you for all your amazing energy with our children 💞

The staff are caring, supportive, and professional. I feel comfortable leaving my child in their care. They encourage play, crafting, games, and quiet time when appropriate. The balance of activities during the time is wonderful.

It's affordable and my daughter seems to like it

Very kind and patient staff, and kids do fun activities.

All of the staff are great. We happen to love Zaniyah!

he kids have been at school for over 6 hours and they need counselors who understand that although energy may be high from the kids, there are ways to get it out or channel it. None of those ways are keeping them in a classroom for long amounts of time with nothing to do. That said, over the years we have had some incredible counselors and truly appreciate them.

What makes this program most valuable is the onsite program. However, the facilities and equipment could use significant improvement.

I think the biggest issue with afterschool care is communication - particularly around the waitlist and registration processes. Communication does not come when it is supposed to. The site crashes EVERY year for registration. The only way to get into aftercare is by calling Helena directly and pleading your case. It makes for a very uneven and, seemlingly, corrupt way to run childcare.

Aftercare is chaotic, kids seem to be mostly unattended, there does not seem to be any intentional activities or engagement from the caregivers

The convenience is the most appealing part of the program. Unfortunately, I’ve experienced a lot of yelling and talking down to the kids and my daughther has reported the same. There’s so much potential. Perhaps there’s more training needed or different standards or philosophies that would make the experience more child centered.

My kid is always so happy, safe and entertained!!

All teachers are very kind and sweet! My child had a wonderful experience while she enrolled as her very first daycare!
Thank you so much all for your love, caring and passion towards our little ones.

My kids absolutely love the Teen Adventure Camp, especially Mr Tommy. He is such a credit to the whole organization.

I would recommend this camp because I really like what they offer. However, there are a few areas that need immediate attention, including making an effort to greet all caregivers at drop-off and pick-up, rather than only those they are more familiar with, and having counselors more engaged and spread out among the children during aftercare hours.

The staff is dedicated, caring, and supportive, and my child is very happy there!

My kids are happy so that’s number 1 but I really struggle with the level and quality of communication from admins to parents.

We're not in preschool yet but daycare is lovely so i imagine i'd recommend preschool too

Great experience overall! Professional, Supportive and Kind Staff. Safe and friendly environment. Fun, educational activities. Our child flourished at South Mountain YMCA.

It is a true community. There is so much love and caring for the children and I feel it equally as much as a parent. I feel safe and secure leaving my little one with her teachers knowing she is well cared for. The communication is excellent too!

Signing up and managing all of the information is too much for working parents with multiple kids going to different camps. Improve your communications. At the very least, identify messages from the Y clearly in stead of using an acronym that is meaningless to parents. My kid is having fun.

My son is in the teen adventure camp and loves it! He said he likes going on different adventures everyday and his counselors were really nice and fun! 👏🏼

Being part of the Theater Camp is being part of a family. It is fun, organized, full of growth, and a great camp!

Counselors are great, lots of activities, I'm glad they are swimming so much, flexible and organized

My kids love the staff and activities at basketball, theater and teen adventure camp. Camp communications have really stepped up this year and are very smooth.

I was pretty disappointed to find out that campers are allowed to use cell phones at Teen Camp. My child does not have a phone and to find out that other kids are on their phones watching videos, taking photos of each other, etc. was disheartening. I don't want to pay for my kid to go to camp to watch something on someone else's phone or for her to feel excluded because she does not have a phone. That is not the experience that I am looking for and I wish that was better communicated ahead of time. (Or maybe something that I need to know to ask about in the future. Many camps do advertise that they are phone free.)

Pool time insufficient, kids highlighted they’re left to their own devices by 1:30pm, not enough organized games, arcade don’t include race karts as promised, carnival day considered child labor rather than fun.

Loving, inclusive and nurturing environment for our kid. We are so grateful to Y staff, amazing Creative Theatet crew led beautifully by Ms. Gail.

Communication was amazing, overall fantastic. Structure of first assignment, basketball camp could have been improved. No drills or organzied BB, too much free play not enough for CITs to do. Third we at YKnots was awesome as was prep week.

This is our 3rd year with the camps. If this would have been our first year we would not be back. The communication during camp was late and confusing. There were never any pictures posted. The trips were not engaging. We were there for the first 2 weeks and the trips got better after she left. I understand that there are not a lot of campers the first 2 weeks but you still need to engage them.

The way camp is split up meant that my almost 11 year old was with kids who were younger. To an almost 11 year old, a 9 year old is completely different and a little kid. She was annoyed that she wasn't surrounded by peers. She asked on day 2 if she had to go back. This is a kid who loves camp and is currently at a different camp and loving it.

I am happy she can't do Discovery again and we will look into Theater or the Teen camp next year. Discovery for the older kids needs more. It is great for the younger kids. Maybe different trips, maybe a different program. I don't know but I do feel like I wasted 2 weeks worth of camp fees this year.

Easy, fun, and affordable, with extended hours that make it one of the only local options for working parents. Thank you! I don’t know what we would do without the Y!

One very small piece of feedback as my daughter's experience in theatre camp is always great! The day of the show, it would be great if all kids could stay at camp so there is less back and forth. Willing to pay $25 or whatever it would cost just for this one day of "aftercare" built in. It seemed stressful for the counselors to also have to shuttle kids in and out.

Ms. Nicole Josey ran an amazing Summer Discovery Camp with tons of detailed info before leading up to the weeks and during and even after. I loved the variety of offerings throughout the week that covered everything from community service to stem to social emotional learning. Wish we were doing this the entire summer now!

Too much screen time and not monitoring what they are doing on their computers. Councellors sharing inappropriate content from their phones (I.e. games and videos not meant for the age group they are supervising). Edible projects are all junk food and sugar.

Safe place where kids can play with their peers.

Double standards, not following your own policy, and counselers that don't respect and communicate with supervisor. Kids get hurt, and the perpetrator gets away with it. Fostering an environment of disrespect, hostility and bullying.

Our family has been part of the South Mountain YMCA ECLC for decades, and now our grandson attends. We love the strong sense of community, the opportunity to make new friends, and seeing dedicated staff members who have been there for 20 to 30 years.

The teachers and staff are all so loving and caring for the children. It warms my heart to drop off my kid every day knowing he's getting all the love and attention.

Honestly I am so happy we have the YMCA in our school. BUT I do believe that things need to change. I have so many ideas with add'l cost to parents if needed. I hear so many times that the they get yelled at all the time and i can only imagine how hard it is to control all those kids at that price. I would love to see some really awesome classses they can pick from if they want. ( maybe join on with O'cannary, or yoga for kids, or something with some for an hour for them to take, or something to give them options during the aftercare time. Maybe having a structured homework person to help for kids grade 3-5. We do aftercare but also do BTB which is amazing and my kiddo love it. Maybe have a focus group with parents to help come up with some ideas!

The Y has become a second family from The 2s program to aftercare - the staff goes above and beyond - my kids love it

Attitude towards children, individual approach, politeness, consideration, conditions. We like everything!!!

We have loved everything about our Y experience. The staff members are very caring and our children have always been happy to go there. We have seen them learn and grow so much at the Y. It's a warm, friendly, nurturing place. We also love that almost all of the staff members who were there a decade ago with our oldest child still work there now that our youngest attends. The ability to maintain consistent staff speaks to the quality of the program and workplace for adults and the children who attend benefit from having experienced teachers.

Untimely and unorganized communication.

Being a Y family has positively impacted each member of our family, espcially our children who have excelled in their social, emotional and early learning and development. We truly believe we have found a strong supportive community base in being involed with the South Mountain YMCA.

The staff, the activities, the ability to keep my kids off screens after school. So grateful to the YMCA SACC team!

The onsite aftercare staff is FANTASTIC.

However, the administration of our branch is completely chaotic. Parents cannot rely on YMCA aftercare programs to be steady, accessible, and predictable, because childcare leadership cannot seem to create, maintain, or deploy systems that make registration and placement processes understandable and equitable. Every year, there's some new form of chaos in the registration system, and this year was particularly egregious. Deploying a placement lottery for families *already in the system* was a complete failure of critical thinking. It's understandable that one would want to create a new placement system beyond "first to log in" but this lottery program should have been phased in for new students and existing students should have been grandfathered into current placements for the duration of their aftercare experience. What's worse? Not getting something you never had? Or having something you rely on taken away from you? The lottery system put parents in a position of having a program they relied on ripped away from them and scrambling to figure out what comes next. It was utterly nonsensical. Unfortunately, the YMCA essentially has a monopoly in our town, so other options are lacking.

Also, since the changeover to the new website/communications platform, communications has been very messy. We regularly receive emails about events after the events occur. I imagine this is also the source of the registration day meltdown. Probably should consider a different vendor or better training for staff in using the current platform.

Wonderful staff! Truly grateful for all that they do!

The counselors are outstanding and Mr Rafeeq is the best of the best. If he left, we’d follow him whether he went.

The registration system is a disaster and the online platform is so much worse after the upgrade. On site is not super organized or well supervised. Still great hours and friendly staff.

The sign up process for next year was terrible and caused our family immense stress. During aftercare, there was a calendar of activities which never seemed to take place. Multiple times at pick up, the kids were just sitting at a table doing nothing - they had no access to toys, books, art materials. They were told they just had to sit there.

The South Mountain YMCA has the best creative curriculum; I love that the children are learning while having fun. Also, the staff are welcoming from the time you walk in the door and as you walk throughout the building. My children have blossomed here, and I am grateful for the staff members that brightened their days and grew their minds.