Our History: A Legacy In Our Community

The Chinatown YMCA has been a major presence in the Chinese Community since 1911.  We began as the Chinese YMCA 96 years ago serving young chinese men in the area of health education and religion.  In 1926 our current facility opened offering a gym, showers and locker rooms, game rooms, a billiard room, social rooms, bedrooms, and a pool.  For the next 78 years our focus has been leadership training, educational support, sports, camping, and swimming. 

Today, the Chinatown YMCA continues to reach youth and families within Chinatown and Chinese Americans from around the Bay Area.  Our focus continues to be educational support, mentoring programs, youth development programs including college, career, and work skills develoment, sports, recreation, art, ballet, leadership development, and  camping.  We strive to emphasis character values of caring, honesty, respect, and responsibility in all that we do.

We are able to serve the community with the continued help of our many donors, volunteers, and supporters. Each year individual donors contribute over $155,000 to support our programs.  We also receive generous support from sponsors in fundraising events such as our Annual Golf Tournament/Crab Feed, and Chinese New Year Run.  We receive grants for youth programs from the Department of Children, Youth, and their Families, and San Francisco Unified School District.