In 1844 George Williams and several of his friends founded the YMCA movement in London, England.  Not long after, in 1867, thirty men of the County Street Methodist Episcopal Church met to form the New Bedford YMCA.  In 1869, the association leased rooms on Purchase Street and in 1889 moved to 147 William Street, where the YMCA offered a broad range of fitness, social, and educational programs. 

By the 1960’s, the YMCA had outgrown its New Bedford facility and in 1972 built a new facility on South Water Street.  In 1963, the YMCA purchased Camp Massasoit, a 25-acre day camp in Mattapoisett that was substantially renovated for year-round operation as a Youth and Family center in 1992.  The ensuing thirty years have seen an expansion of the YMCA’s youth and family programming with the addition of the Musser Youth and Family Center in New Bedford (1998); the Dartmouth YMCA and Camp Metacomet on the site of the former Children’s Museum (2001); and the new full facility Gleason Family YMCA in Wareham (2004).  The steady growth of YMCA Southcoast continued in 2005, with the acquisition of 30 acres of woodlands for a future day camp in Rochester, Massachusetts (May 2005) and the merger with the Fall River YMCA (June 2005), which was incorporated in 1857.  Our service area now includes 17 communities from the greater Fall River area to the Cape Cod Canal.

YMCA Southcoast is a corporate YMCA headquartered in historic downtown New Bedford, MA with five divisions:  the Dartmouth YMCA, Fall River YMCA, Gleason Family YMCA in Wareham, New Bedford YMCA and the Mattapoisett YMCA.  YMCA Southcoast has been working to provide health and social services to thousands of youth, families and individuals throughout the Southcoast region for nearly 150 years, building strong kids, strong families and strong communities.  The annual support campaign represents the largest share of our fundraising efforts each year, reaching out to our members, local businesses and the community at large.  It embodies our core mission by providing financial support to youth, teens, families and adults who simply cannot afford to pay for the YMCA experience.