Joseph Kuleza's Testimonial

My Y experience by Joseph Kulesza

In the last 2 or 3 years I have found the YMCA to be a second home to me.  I started coming the Y in hope of losing weight because I wasn’t happy with the way I looked.   At first I played basketball but eventually some of my friends at school told me how great of a work out swimming was.  So I signed up for lessons at the Y.  

Soon after that I fell in love with the sport and wanted to do it competitively.  I joined the team at school.  I lost close to 60 pounds and was in the best shape of my life.  I loved it so much that I began to swim year round through school and at the Y with the Lasers Swim Team.  Because of this I was forced to keep my grades at school up if I wanted to remain on the team, which put me on the Honor Roll for the first time.

I met a great new group of kids on the team and we all became like a family.  I now can push myself physically and in everything else that I do.  Because of that I am the Vice President of the Leaders Club at the Y and confident enough, now, to give this speech at the YMCA Annual Meeting.

I am now in the off-season for swimming.  I still go to the almost daily to play basketball, which has given me another great group of friends.

If it wasn’t for the Y I might not have ever lost the weight I needed to be happy.  I would not have the people I now enjoy in my life and I wouldn’t have discovered my love for swimming.