For more information, call Cheryl Ballard at 507-387-8255 ext. 248 or email cballard@mankatoymca.org

Throughout the first "official" week of summer we will be launching the hot new releases of all our Les Mills programs, which are exclusively offered in southern MN at the Mankato Family YMCA, including BODYPUMP, BODYFLOW, BODYCOMBAT, and GRIT!

Schedule of Events:

Mon, June 22nd at 5:40p - Launch of BODYCOMBAT 64

   Along with Basketball, the YMCA had a hand in bringing Fathers Day  to the fore! Just like Mother's Day, Father's Day is celebrated in every part of the world. In the United States, Canada and most countries in Asia, Father's Day is the third Sunday in June.

   Father's Day is not only a day to honor fathers, but one to show respect for all father figures. Families honor grandfathers, stepfathers, uncles and other adult male figures that are special to them.

   Sonora Louise Smart Dodd, of Spokane, Washington, was 27 when she listened to a Sunday sermon about Mother's Day in 1909 and wondered why there was no corresponding day for fathers. (Mother's Day observances began in 1908 in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, according to Hallmark Cards in Kansas City.) She was just 16 when her own father, Civil War veteran William Jackson Smart, was widowed when his wife died in childbirth with their sixth child. Her dad was left to raise the newborn and his five other children by himself on a rural farm in eastern Washington state.
   Sonora Dodd began her campaign after that sermon. She believed that the nation did not show enough respect to fathers, citing such popular songs of the day as "Everybody Works But Father," she promoted Father's Day out of love for her father.
   She persuaded the Spokane Ministerial Association and local YMCA to pass a resolution in support of Father's Day, and the first local Father's Day was observed on June 19, 1910, at the YMCA in Spokane, Washington.
   Mrs. Dodd wanted Father's Day to be celebrated on the first Sunday in June, her father's birthday. However, the Spokane council could not get the resolution through the first reading until the third Sunday in June.  States and organizations began lobbying Congress to declare an annual Father's Day.

   In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson approved of this idea, but it was not until 1924 when President Calvin Coolidge made it a national event to "establish more intimate relations between fathers and their children and to impress upon fathers the full measure of their obligations."

   In 1966 President Lyndon Johnson signed a presidential proclamation declaring the 3rd Sunday of June as Father's Day.

   Sonora Smart Dodd was honored for her contribution at the World's Fair in Spokane in 1974. Mrs. Dodd died in 1978 at age 96.