Erika Wood began her journey with the YMCA when she was just 12 years old, helping with preschool programming and later teaching swimming lessons.
"I felt really good about being part of the greater good and making a difference in people's lives and helping them develop new skills," she said. "I felt like it's a place I belonged but I also felt like it's a place others belonged and there was a true connection to community."
Wood was at the YMCA of Metro Denver for 10 years before she returned to the Chicago area to join the Indian Boundary YMCA team in Downers Grove and eventually, Fry Family YMCA in Naperville.
Now, after 43 years, she is retiring from the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago.
YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago
"I'm ready to sort of be on my own schedule," she said. "We all work very hard through our lifetimes, and now I'm ready to kind of take care of me and do things that I enjoy doing. And one of those things is continuing to be engaged with the YMCA in a volunteer capacity," she said.
Wood said one of the moments she's most proud of is helping the YMCA respond during the COVID-19 pandemic. Fry Family YMCA was able to provide emergency childcare and support families during and create experiences for children.
She said she hopes she was a role model for others and made a difference in families' lives the same way the YMCA made a difference in hers.
"I think the Y has allowed me to dream and be creative," she said. "I just feel very blessed to have had that opportunity. The Y has probably given me more to me and my family than I have probably given the Y."
