YMCA, JCC celebrate shared goals, services
BY KATHY CHANG Staff Writer

EDISON - It's a marriage that has worked.

The Jewish Community Center and the Metuchen-Edison YMCA, which has been dubbed the "Community Campus," celebrated five years of combining their services for the good of both organizations as well as the community of Edison on Jan. 27.

Since its collaboration opening in December 2002, membership has grown from 1,000 the first year to 8,000 active members now. The two organizations share membership.

The founders of the JCC and YMCA collaboration - Iris Baumgarten, former executive director at JCC, David Belowich, former Metuchen YMCA board member, Adam Glinn, Ronald and Jan Grayzel, William Jeney, Linda Kovach, William Lovett, Dorothy Rubinstein, Ralph and Judie Steinhardt, Ron Sherry and John Wiley - joined over 50 people, including Cindi Archambault, director at the Edison YMCA; Pam Brown, Edison, Metuchen, Woodbridge YMCA board member and anniversary event organizer; Helene Zahn, development director of the Edison, Metuchen, and Woodbridge YMCAs; state Sen. Barbara Buono (D-18); Middlesex County Freeholder Director David Crabiel; Lucinda Florio, wife of former Mayor James Florio; Mayor Jun Choi; council President Robert Diehl; council Vice President Wayne Mascola; Councilwoman Melissa Perilstein; Councilman Sudhanshu Prasad; Councilwoman Antonia Ricigliano, and Metuchen Mayor Thomas Vahalla at the center on Oak Tree Road.

Choi presented the founders with township proclamations.

"We asked ourselves how we would get a YMCA into North Edison, where there was a tremendous need for one," said Belowich, who has been a member of the Metuchen YMCA and sat actively on the YMCA board for nine years. "I just asked, 'How about talking to the JCC?' "

Belowich's simple question soon came to fruition, but not without long hours of planning and dedication.

"I developed a business plan, and we moved forward from there … the cost of making the Edison YMCA possible was ironic, because it was the estimated cost that I predicted on my plan," said Belowich, who is now an honorary member of the board. "It's a great feeling [celebrating the fifth anniversary of the collaboration] … in retrospect, everything happened as it was planned."

It was 10 years ago that she received the phone call that made history, remembers Dorothy Rubinstein, who was president of the JCC at the time.

"I was sitting in then-JCC Executive Director Iris Baumgarten's office," said Rubinstein, who is now the JCC executive director. "Bill Lovett [CEO of the Edison, Metuchen, and Woodbridge YMCAs] called and proposed the idea of combining the services of JCC and the YMCA. At the time, they were looking to expand the YMCA. … I thought it was the greatest idea, and we jumped on it."

The collaboration was announced in early June 1998.

The Community Campus of the JCC and the Metuchen-Edison YMCA is the first known collaboration of the two sec- tarian-based organizations founded on different religious orientations, but who can work together for a common purpose. Both agencies philosophically share the ideals of strength of mind, body, family and community. The collaboration enabled each organization to retain its own identity while sharing the belief of building strong community values.

"We had nothing to go by when we were planning the collaboration," said Archambault, who came on in the early stages of the collaboration and is now the director of the Edison YMCA. "It turned out that the things that we thought were going to be obstacles, such as people coming in for memberships, were easy, and the things that we thought were easy, such as communication, turned into obstacles … but what marriage doesn't have communication issues?"

The campus facility features a stateof the-art wellness center, a five-lane swimming pool with locker rooms, a sauna, a gymnasium, an accredited preschool, a childcare center, meeting rooms, and a multipurpose room for performances and lectures.

Three million dollars was raised for the joint project. Money for the facility included a $500,000 state legislative grant and a $50,000 grant from Middlesex County. Money was donated by a vast array of corporations, financial institutions, foundations, private individuals and businesses, including the more than 300 business owners in the Oak Tree Road area who make up the Indian Business Association.

Choi, who is a former member of the YMCA board and remembers attending bar mitzvahs at the JCC when he was a teenager, said it's hard not to recognize the composition of the campus community that has expanded to reflect the prosperous Indian Asian business district on Oak Tree Road.

"Forty percent of the applicants are Indian Asian," said Choi. "The JCC and the Edison YMCA not only recognizes people of Indian Asian descent, but all cultures."

Adam Glinn, JCC president, said although the two organizations come from different backgrounds, they shared the common goal.

"We respect our differences," said Glinn. "We have created a hope with and from our community … these tremendous organizations have touched and improved the lives of everyone who comes through those doors."

Buono remembers bringing her children to the JCC when they were younger.

"They attended all kinds of classes, from swimming to cooking," she said. "But the must valuable time was spending one-on-one time with my children at the center. When I first heard about the collaborative endeavor, it was the most perfect and wonderful idea to me."

Lovett said the fifth anniversary celebration is what the JCC and YMCAs hoped for.

"This is a model in Edison for the future … it gets beyond whether someone is Catholic, Christian, Jewish, etc., and brings people together," he said. -