Sarasota has a YMCA again, behind major nonprofit merger announcement

A no-quit group of volunteers and deep-pocketed donors, paired with some like-minded nonprofit executives, rejoice over the news Sarasota is no longer a city without a Y.

By Mark Gordon
| 10:00 a.m. October 30, 2023
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The YMCA brand in Sarasota dates back to 1945.

Courtesy image

Manatee-Sarasota

After a four-year saga that included multiple name changes, a real estate transaction worth nearly $4.5 million and a small-but-mighty crew of determined donors and volunteers, the YMCA brand is back in Sarasota.

The news — celebratory for longtime Y devotees devastated in September 2019 when the then-Sarasota Family YMCA shuttered its two branches in town — stems from a nonprofit merger announced today. The merger brings together CoreSRQ, which had been operating the pair of Sarasota branches since July 2021, with the larger YMCA of Southwest Florida, based in Venice. Financial terms of the merger, supported and facilitated by the Gulf Coast Community Foundation’s Incredible (I3) program, weren’t disclosed.