15th Anniversary Celebration set for Oct. 30

Joshua Schoaf took over as new Associate Executive Director at the Hastings YMCA about two months ago, and he immediately hit the ground running in the new position.

Schoaf has a background in sports and nonprofits and also was a teacher and worked for Thrivent Financial for eight years.

He started the Hope Fieldhouse in Rosemount about five years ago. What strikes him most about the Hastings YMCA in his time here is the staff and community support.

“The number one thing that I love about my job right now is my staff. We have a wonderful staff. Most of them live in Hastings, and they are just great people. They work very hard,” Schoaf said while addressing the Hastings City Council at its meeting last week. He was invited to speak by councilmember Tina Folch, who serves on the Hastings YMCA Board of Directors.

“We have great women in leadership that are doing some good things,” said Schoaf. “I have a passion for youth sports. We have some of the best programming in the entire association for the YMCA here, which is fantastic to see.”

Schoaf said that on one recent day, Hastings had the most visitors of any Twin Cities YMCA.

“We’re not as high as far as our membership, but our usage rate is extremely high, and that’s because of the great work of the leaders before me and the beautiful facility that we have.”

He also pointed out that the Hastings YMCA has the highest youth sports participation numbers of the Twin Cities association.

“We have over 155 families participating in flag football. There’s a lot coming in,” he said.

Council member Trevor Lund attested to that. He said practice times had to be split up.

“I think with that many kids, you’d think it easily could just be kind of a zoo, but it’s really, really wellorganized,” Lund said. “The amount of opportunities you get through the YMCA on a sports level pays off, whether they choose to be in sports later or not, it’s a great opportunity to compete outside of school.”

Schoaf is a believer that kids have to be physically ready to play tackle football, and the Hastings flag football program is unique.

“I think being able to show that you can run a really good, big youth association in flag football is something that’s cool that we’re spearheading here in Hastings that is not happening in other places. I think it will continue to grow, and we can really be a model for that,” he said.

Schoaf invited councilmembers and the community to the 15th Anniversary Celebration of the Hastings YMCA on Sunday, Oct. 30, from 3 – 6 p.m. “We’ll being having a lot of stuff happening and it’s still coming together,” he said. Plans are for a rockclimbing wall and other children’s activities, as well as games and food trucks.