When the city of Kent leaders agreed to pay about $11 million toward the construction of a $36.6 million YMCA in town, they formed a partnership to help make sure the nonprofit became a community asset.
So far, that partnership seems to be thriving based on a recent update on the facility’s overall operations and its performance under the city’s 50-year operating memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the YMCA of Greater Seattle.
The Kent YMCA, 10828 SE 248th St., on the East Hill, opened in 2019. The nonprofit facility has 3,216 memberships and more than 7,500 individual members, according to a Dec. 9 report to the Kent City Council by Jenna Montoya, branch executive. Over half of those are family memberships. There are about 1,500 senior memberships, or active older adults, as the YMCA prefers to call them.
“There’s a lot of fun and exciting things happening at the Kent YMCA, especially in partnership with the Kent Parks Department,” Montoya said.
Council President Satwinder Kaur agreed.
“I absolutely love our Y and I love that it’s in the partnership we have with our Kent Parks and community swims,” Kaur said. “I do take my kids there for the little pool. I’m a member, but still I see families there taking advantage of that.”
People can join the YMCA under a household membership (two or more at same household) for $154 per month or an individual membership for $91 per month. The facility offers a gym, pools, fitness facilities, classes and programs.
In addition, the YMCA will pay up to $1 million per year to provide financial aid to families who cannot afford the full membership fee. Montoya said the YMCA was expected to pay about $730,000 towards memberships and programs by the end of 2025.
“And we’ve expanded our financial assistance programs this year compared to years past where we increased the award based off of income,” Montoya said. “We also expanded the awards to additional income brackets. So we expect to see that number increase with those changes.”
Kent has added more programs, too.
“We have also grown in our offerings and enrollments for all of our programming,” Montoya said. “In addition, we had some new youth sports additions this year (2025). We’ve added ballet and expanded soccer programs, added volleyball, doubled our youth basketball league programming, which is the biggest participation base that we have. So, we’re excited to see that grow in 2026.”
While the city of Kent contributed $11 million toward construction of the two-story, 50,000-square-foot facility, the YMCA covered most of the rest of the costs through state grants, major donors and community contributors.
The city kicks in about $95,000 annually to help fund operations, mainly for the aquatics program, City Parks Director Julie Parascondola told the council.
City leaders for decades sought to build a community pool, but abandoned that idea because of the high costs. That led to the search for a partner to help build the pool, which is how the agreement came about with the YMCA of Greater Seattle.
With the renovations to Morrill Meadows Park, which sits next to the YMCA, that has given the city and nonprofit even more opportunities to partner.
“It’s been great to kind of see that flourish, to see all of the new neighbors and families join together,” Montoya said. “We have lots of special programming and events. We work closely with the parks team to ensure that that space is safe and enriching for everyone. We support steady use of the bathrooms in our buildings for those using the dog park and the parking lot and the parks outside and just protecting those spaces including the parking for those attendees.”
The park/YMCA events included the change of venue last summer for the city’s Spotlight Series Thursday evening concerts from Lake Meridian Park to Morrill Meadows Park.
“It was a huge success,” Montoya said. “There was hundreds, if not thousands of attendees to that event and we hosted the performers and bands inside the building. That was very exciting for our staff. We felt like we were meeting local celebrities. So, that was a great opportunity this year. We hope to continue that and we made a lot of new great relationships and partnerships with the city of Kent team through that.”
As far as aquatics programming, the YMCA added a third day per week for free community swim days, which was two days per week. The facility also serves as the practice pool for the high school swim teams from Kent-Meridian and Kentwood. The city used to operate a pool at Kent-Meridian, but closed the aging facility with the opening of the YMCA.
The YMCA also offers social impact programs, and has doubled its participants in programs like behavioral health and foster care support, Montoya said.
The Kent facility, with other community partners, offers a food pantry called Pantry of Hope that operates every Friday from about 1 to 4 p.m. to provide kind of a stigma-free food access point for community members, Montoya said.
“We see lots of people come in on a regular basis when we have this every Friday on a first-come first-served basis with nonperishables and fresh produce for families,” Montoya said. “We’ve had at least 20 families a week who have been partaking in the food pantry and we expect to expand this and shift this depending on community need and desires as we move forward.”
The YMCA opens its facility as a warming or cooling center during extreme temperatures.
• For more information about programs and financial assistance, go to seattleymca.org/locations/kent-ymca.
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People enjoy the pool at the Kent YMCA, 10828 SE 248th St., on the East Hill. COURTESY PHOTO, YMCA
The Kent YMCA has fitness areas, pools and a gym. COURTESY PHOTO, YMCA
