Outside the imposing brick tower of the Argyle Avenue YMCA, wind howls and wet snow pelts the pavement on a grey January morning. In a sparsely furnished office on the second floor, Tony Pacheco, CEO of the National Capital Region YMCA-YWCA explains why his organization matters.
“The YMCA touches so many lives,” he says. “We provide child care, we provide shelter for kids on the street, we provide opportunities for people to get healthy. I mean, the impact is just so enormous.”
Since coming to lead the Ottawa Y in 2005, Pacheco has worked hard to make that impact even bigger. But as he aims to modernize one of Canada’s oldest and largest YMCA’s, he faces some significant challenges.
Now in his 50s, Pacheco first became involved with the YMCA in 1979, when a mentor convinced him to apply for a position in Sudbury, Ontario. He got the job and says he quickly acquired a passion for his work.
“I realized just how special an organization it was. It was more than just a job, it was a calling.”
After some hectic years in Sudbury and then Moncton that he describes as a baptism by fire, Pacheco migrated to Sarnia. where he led the local YMCA for nearly two decades and left an indelible impression.
When he took over, the YMCA headquarters were housed in an old crowded building nearly bursting at the seams. And with the local economy in the midst of a recession, there seemed little he could do. Pacheco launched an innovative offensive, cultivating funding partnerships with the city allowing him to open up a sparkling new $10 million headquarters in 1997.
By the time Pacheco left for Ottawa in January 2005, the local YMCA membership had grown from 1,500 to more than 30,000 annual visits, while the budget had mushroomed from a paltry $400,000 to a staggering $8 million. It was enough to get him a spot on the mayor’s honour list and a flattering send-off in the Sarnia Observer.
A Jan. 11, 2005 editorial read: “We wish him the best in the new job, knowing that that the new community Pacheco is heading to will benefit from his drive and desire to make the place he lives and works a better one. That was certainly the case here.”
Three years later, Pacheco says his decision to leave Sarnia was the right one. “Ottawa’s YMCA has a tremendous history and is really well connected in the community,” he says. “I think it will be a great way to finish off my career.”
When Pacheco first arrived in January 2005, his reception was a bit frostier than he expected. During the first few weeks, record low temperatures dipped below minus 40 degrees.
“I kept coming to work thinking I’d never experienced cold like this before and my staff kept calling me a southern Ontario wimp.”
But frigid weather couldn't stop Pacheco’s staff from warming to his vision.
Don Noble, vice-president of strategic project development at the Y, has devoted 47 years of his life to the organization. He says Pacheco made such a strong impression on him that he decided to stay on board despite being eligible for retirement.
“It’s an exciting time for us and I’d like to be a part of it,” he says.
Under Pacheco’s leadership, the YMCA has embarked on a soul-searching mission to hammer out a sharper vision for the future, says Noble. Numerous consultants, community studies and board committees have examined the Y’s role and the programs it should develop in coming years.
As a result, the centre has expanded child care facilities, opened a Newcomer Information Program for recent immigrants and worked with the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario to combat child obesity.
And at the heart of the revitalization is a major renovation of the corporate headquarters on Argyle Avenue to take place in the next few years. Noble and Pacheco both think the soaring brick Centretown landmark is a worn relic that desperately needs a facelift.
“Our lobby could belong to any building,” says Noble. “You can’t see any of the dozens of activities going on because they’re all hidden away.”
The frenzy of activity with Pacheco at the helm has left Noble feeling a little dizzy.
“Three years sounds like a long time, but it’s just flown right by,” he says.
Heather George appreciates the Y’s effort. She’s been taking her two children to the Argyle day care centre for six months and has no plans to stop. “This is the only daycare that actually takes the kids swimming and to the gym,” she says. “In a way you’re paying less but you’re also getting more. It’s a huge help for parents.”
But not all of Pacheco’s work has been met with enthusiasm.
In Sarnia, the YMCA benefited immensely from partnerships with the city such as land and funding guarantees, which played an essential role in the opening of the new headquarters. Although Pacheco has been meeting constantly with local councillors and politicians, Ottawa has a more complex bureaucracy so he has only encountered “limited success,” says Noble.
With such a large organization under his command, Pacheco says marshalling myriad competing perspectives around a his vision is a huge challenge. “It’s every day work and it never stops,” he says.
Pacheco will also have to ensure that many of the YMCA’s most needy users aren’t left in the cold, says a longtime resident of the Argyle Avenue housing tower who wished to remain unidentified.
Sitting at table near the building’s cafeteria, the man – who once lived in what he called “a shed” with several other people – sweeps his hand to indicate his surroundings. “I’ve been here for four years and for me, this is a difficult place to live,” he says.
“I live with drug addicts, alcoholics, people with mental disorders. The Y should be doing a lot more to help them.”
He says a good place to start would be to hire more psychologists and support workers. “You’ve got to be delicate with these people and give them a lot of specialized help.”
High rents are also an issue, because many people who live at the Y survive on welfare and have little money for food, he says. “It really squeezes people and makes them desperate.”
While he acknowledges the problems aren’t all Pacheco’s fault, he says that the CEO will have to address some of these issues if he really wants to make good on the Y’s mandate of helping the local community.
Despite the challenges, Pacheco remains optimistic. He plans to stay on board as CEO for another eight to 10 years during which he hopes to see the membership of his organization more than double from 70,000 to 150,000.
Because after all, helping the most people he can is the reason he was drawn to the YMCA in the first place, he says. As the sleet falls outside, Pacheco recalls a Vietnamese woman who had a profound impact on him.
In the mid-1980s she escaped Communist Vietnam on a rickety and overcrowded boat with her husband and 12-year-old daughter in tow but was forced leave a handicapped daughter behind.
After enduring harrowing storms and two years in a barren Thai refugee camp, the family made it to Canada, where the YMCA helped them settle. Here Pacheco’s YMCA – he was then heading operations in Sarnia – worked tirelessly to bring the woman’s handicapped daughter across the Pacific, and finally in 1995, succeeded.
“There was nothing more satisfying in the world than sitting there and seeing that reunion,” says Pacheco. “And it never would have happened without the YMCA.