History 1998 - 2000s

1998

Happy 95th Birthday YWCA
With its home under construction, the YWCA celebrates its 95th birthday with a street party in front of the downtown building. The Capital Campaign gets a boost with a $300,000 challenge grant from the Kresge Foundation. Three floors of apartments are complete and ready for residents to move into.

1999

The YW Comes Home
After 20 months of construction, the YWCA moves back to her downtown home. The beautifully restored facility is the result of a successful $10 million capital campaign. The restored building is truly a testament to the generosity and compassion of the community. The renewed and restored building allows the YW to double the size of the homeless child care program, expand housing to 64 units, house the Women's Resource Center and unveil the Chapel Gallery for Visual and Performing Arts.

2000

SAIL Program launched
Special Assessment Intervention Liaison (SAIL), a program of DHR, is designed to help victims of domestic violence through education. The YWCA hires and trains SAIL workers to help connect domestic violence victims with vital services that are available throughout the state. 

2000

First Annual Purse & Passion Luncheon
The YW presents the first annual Purse & Passion Luncheon to highlight the YWCA's mission. This inspirational event provides a unique environment to assemble a diverse intergenerational group of women to celebrate the common strengths and desires of women and to collectively celebrate and promote women's philanthropy.

2001

Birmingham hosts National YW Conference
The National Association of YWCA Executives holds its annual meeting in Birmingham, Alabama and focuses on racial justice work, women's economic empowerment and networking.

2003

100th Anniversary-A Century of Caring
The YWCA of Birmingham becomes the YWCA Central Alabama. The YW celebrated its 100th anniversary, A Century of Caring, with a number of special events and initiatives, with funding provided by many generous individuals and corporations.

2005

A New Look for the YWCA
The YWCA of the USA unveiled a new brand consisting of a new logo and the renewed focus on the organization's two key mission elements: eliminating racism and empowering women. 

2006

Embracing Homeless Familes
After more than 26 years of providing emergency housing and services to families experiencing homelessness, the Interfaith Hospitality House is no longer able to meet the rising demands of families in need of emergency services. The YWCA decides to take on Interfaith, adding it to the YW’s safety net of services offered. There are plans to build a new facility for the program soon.

2008

Strengthening Our Families, Strengthening Our Communities
Within a year of acquiring Interfaith Hospitality House, the YWCA launches a capital campaign to fund a new facility for the program. Far surpassing the set goal of $6 million, the YW raises more than $15 million with the help of generous donors and supporters. 

2009

YWoodlawn and St. Clair County
The ribbon cutting for the new Interfaith Hospitality House is held in September. It opens in Woodlawn as one of the only shelters in the state that accepts single mothers with sons over the age of 10, two-parent families and single fathers with children. This begins the first phase of a broader neighborhood revitalization effort known as YWoodlawn. 

After receiving hundreds of calls from domestic violence victims from St. Clair and Blount counties, the YW notices that these victims rarely travel to the central Birmingham offices for support. In October of 2009, the YWCA opens a domestic violence shelter in St. Clair County to serve this population.  

2010

Expansion Brings More Housing to Woodlawn
The YW continues its multimillion-dollar urban neighborhood revitalization effort, YWoodlawn. Driven by the demand for safe, decent and affordable housing in the underserved Woodlawn neighborhood, the YW completes renovations on four apartment complexes, providing 58 apartment units in the area. More than 1,200 applications are submitted for housing.

2011

Enriching Lives
The YWCA opens its Family Resource Center and finishes its Community Garden in Woodlawn. This ribbon cutting culminates a very successful capital campaign with more than 300 generous donors, including the City of Birmingham’s Community Development Department and its HUD funding. This state-of-the-art YWoodlawn campus now features four apartment complexes, a KaBOOM! playground, Interfaith Hospitality House, a community garden and a Family Resource Center.

2012

Preparing Youth for the Future
YWoodlawn continues to flourish, and programming at the Family Resource Center has taken off. The YWCA partners with the Alys Stephens Center’s program ArtReach to provides arts education to those living in the Woodlawn community. Summer CREW, a summer work program for YWoodlawn teenagers, is established, and participants learn job-readiness skills, including landscaping, painting, general facility maintenance and professional development.  

2013

Winner of Nonprofit Award
YWCA Central Alabama was honored to receive the Birmingham Business Journal’s Second Annual Nonprofit Award for organizations with revenue of over $5 million. The awards luncheon was held on March 14, 2013, at The Wynfrey Hotel.

CEO Suzanne Durham Retires
In recognition of its work in the Woodlawn community, the YWCA is awarded the American Planning Association’s 2013 National Planning Excellence Award for Advancing Diversity & Social Change in honor of Paul Davidoff.

The YWCA celebrates her 110th birthday in March!  In honor of her birthday and to celebrate our strong foundation and sustain our fearless future, we set out to reach 110 planned and/or deferred gifts.  

Suzanne Durham, who led the agency for more than three decades, retired at the end of the year. The Board of Directors appointed Yolanda Sullivan, past President of the YWCA Board of Directors (serving from 2007-2010), as Interim Chief Executive Officer to lead the transition.

 

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