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2025 Founder's Award
The YMCA of Greater Cleveland presented the Cleveland Cavaliers with its Founder's Award at its annual Founder's Day event on September 24. This award is given to individuals or organizations that have made outstanding contributions to the YMCA.
For more than a decade, the Cleveland Cavaliers and the YMCA of Greater Cleveland have partnered to help young people thrive in spirit, mind and body. Launched in 2013, the Junior Cavs youth basketball program is a fair-play learning league that puts fun first while developing fundamentals, teamwork, sportsmanship, and community involvement.
Cavaliers youth basketball professionals provide training and ongoing mentoring to Y parent volunteer coaches, ensuring every team benefits from best-practice instruction. The program weaves the Y's core values—caring, honesty, respect and responsibility—throughout the season, making Junior Cavs far more than a kids basketball league. Its success has become a model other NBA teams have replicated to deepen local impact.
In March every year, the Y and Cavaliers co-host Healthy Kids Day at Rocket Arena, a free afternoon of health and wellness activities that also serves as the kickoff to YMCA summer camp. Since 2008, this event has welcomed more than 100,000 children and families.
Junior Cavs strengthens physical and emotional well-being and reinforces positive values and school success. We are grateful to the Cleveland Cavaliers for their steadfast partnership—together, we are transforming thousands of young lives across Greater Cleveland.
Community Impact Award
There is no other organization quite like the Y. That's because in more than 10,000 neighborhoods across the nation, we have the presence and partnerships to not just promise, but also deliver, lasting personal and social change. Volunteers are the heart of our organization. Their contributions enrich lives and make it possible to offer programs and services that otherwise would not exist.
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Impacting Our Community Together
The Y created Founder's Day to acknowledge the founding of the YMCA in 1844 in London, followed by its establishment in Cleveland in 1854. Since its founding over 170 years ago, the YMCA of Greater Cleveland has been committed to building strong communities.
Celebrated on September 24 at Rocket Arena, Founder's Day recognized the Cleveland Cavaliers and over a dozen volunteers who have contributed to the Y's mission of providing comprehensive programs and services that enrich communities—and all the people who live in them.
Our strong, productive partnership between the YMCA of Greater Cleveland and the Cleveland Cavaliers has endured for more than a decade and, grounded in shared commitment, will continue to serve our community for years to come.
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S.P. Fenn Heritage Society
Sereno Peck Fenn served as the President of the Cleveland YMCA from 1892 to 1917. He met Henry Sherwin on a train and struck up a conversation. Sherwin offered him a job, first as a bookkeeper, Fenn later became Secretary/Treasurer, and ultimately VP of Sherwin Williams Company. Upon Fenn’s death, he left a $100,000 bequest to the YMCA’s educational programs, which continues to help the Cleveland YMCA today.
The S.P. Fenn Heritage Society honors those individuals and families who either include the YMCA of Greater Cleveland in their estate plans, or contribute to the Endowment Fund. Members of the Society are recognized and invited to opportunities annually that demonstrate the impact of the Endowment’s transformational work. Since its founding in 1854, the YMCA of Greater Cleveland has been responding to changing community needs. The Endowment Fund ensures that the Y remains relevant and accessible to all for decades into the future.