The Y is an Invincible Summer to James
James Ericksen-McCrea, 33, still remembers the adventurous, exciting feeling Y summer camps gave him when he was a boy.
“There were long hikes, rafting, mountain biking,” he reminisces. “I learned to love being outdoors and experiencing new adventures. I have a wild heart from my time in Y camps and an appreciation of the wilderness.”
James became a counselor-in-training (CIT) as a young teenager, and then he spent years as a camp counselor passing along what he learned as a camper. He has continued to explore the incredible outdoor spaces in the Pacific Northwest, now with his fiance Mandy, whom he proposed to during a camping trip this summer.
“I still try to bottle that feeling that camp gave me,” he says, laughing.
James also worked as a YMCA afterschool teacher during the school year—helping kids with homework and leading them in fun, physical games to release their energy. It’s there that he learned how to resolve conflict, manage kids’ emotions and expectations, and help them talk through problems—all keys to emotional health.
“The core values of the Y stick with kids,” he says. “It gives a framework of ethics that is digestible for young minds.”
Now, James can be found at the Y almost every morning for an hour lifting weights, playing basketball or doing yoga. He credits the Y with teaching him how to lift weights safely, prevent injuries and lose weight in a healthy way (he lost 140 pounds between 2017 and 2018!)
“I learned practical tools for success at the Y,” he says. “I’ve had such a breadth of experience here, it is hard to sum up. But I hope that one day I’ll have kids in camp here and then I’ll be an old man sitting on the Y steps.”
James points to the lifelong friends he made in camp, working at the Y and staying fit and healthy through the Y as evidence of its power for every day people.
“It truly is a community center. I don’t think of it as a gym,” he says. “Philosopher Albert Camus said, ‘In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.’ The Y represents the invincible summer to me.”
