They maintain a commitment to serving all ages, abilities, and incomes to meet the needs of the community. The YMCA has been found to address the problems of its communities and now the YMCA is looking to cities and towns that bring new initiatives to help meet the needs of young people and their families. The YMCA ensures that people have the opportunity to become healthier, safer and more secure in their own neighborhoods. The original YMCA began in London in 1844 with a small group of young people who were new to the city. They came to look for work, but instead found public housing and dangerous street influences. Twenty-two-year-old George Williams and 11 of his friends organized the first Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA), which was a safe place to study the Bible and escape dangerous street life (Maier, 2000). This association has opened up to several members by helping people meet the social needs of the community. The YMCA made people feel safe and also created a place of friendship because people started going there to share ideas and problems they had. As the days passed, YMCA became more popular and new associations opened in different parts of the United States. A popular YMCA program, located right here in New York City, is the Cross Island YMCA Beacon Center. The Cross Island YMCA Beacon Center believes in promoting social and emotional growth in people in the community. This program offers a wide variety of programs and services to help people learn healthy behaviors and positive values. For teen programs, they offer services such as sports (basketball, martial arts, tennis, etc.), creative arts (dance, theater, step team, etc.), and visual arts (artwork, fashion design, and photography work ). . These services help teens… middle of paper… others stay healthy. An important social problem that this agency addresses is poverty and lack of education. The Cross Island YMCA Beacon Center uses education social policy to improve educational outcomes for youth, particularly in low-income communities. YMCAs across the country provide academic support and enrichment in both early learning and extracurricular settings. The Beacon Center offers tutoring, tutoring and counseling to young people so they can have the tools and motivation to succeed in school and in life. The agency provides many youth programs to help children interact with other people while promoting the child's emotional and social maturation. Additionally, children who come from families struggling to make ends meet have the opportunity to develop skills in different areas such as computer skills, drama and graphic design..