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Mike Kapuscinski: On a mission to create more “micro-communities” for kids and teens

When Mike Kapuscinski’s family of three moved from Poland to the US in the 1980s, they had no spare money for sports or after-school activities. But there was a YMCA 10 blocks away that kept its doors open on Friday and Saturday nights so kids could play basketball until 2 a.m. 


Looking back, Kapuscinski can see how this simple gesture provided him with a crucial lifeline. “The Y knew it would keep kids in our neighborhood out of trouble, simply by creating a space where we could hang out and shoot hoops. And it did,” he recalls. 


In time, the YMCA became more than a hangout for Kapuscinski. It became a central part of his life, first as a volunteer and then working his way up to become executive director of the Tomlinson South Meridian YMCA – and now, as executive director of Boise’s Downtown YMCA. 

Kapuscinski is currently on a mission to create programming to bring more teens through the Y’s doors at all four locations in the Treasure Valley. And he’s partnering with You. Me. We. All to form a new teen advisory committee to help create “micro-communities” where teens want to gather. Because that’s exactly what it did for him, more than 30 years ago.


“Teens have to be the ones who tell us what teens today want and need – because we adults don’t know. But I do know that once we get more teens coming through our doors, they’ll find a micro community where they’ll feel like they belong.”

You.Me.We.All Interviews Mike Kapuscinski, Executive Director of the Downtown Boise YMCA


Q: You’re a product of having access to a local Y as a kid. Tell us more about that.


I always loved to swim, and my friends and I used to scale the Y’s chain link fence to be able to swim and cool off on hot days. But one day we got caught. And I had to talk to the executive director if I wanted to be allowed to come back. And he told me that I needed to join the Y. I told him my family couldn’t afford it. And then, he told me about their financial aid program – and their swim team. 


That led to me swimming competitively on the Y’s swim team, working as a lifeguard, and ultimately getting a college swimming scholarship. I’m nearly certain my life would have turned out very differently if that sequence of events did not happen. I probably would have gotten in trouble more often.


Q: Why did you decide to work with You. Me. We. All to put out a call for teens to join a new teen advisory committee?


We want to partner with community organizations that are also doing the important work of looking for ways to improve the mental and physical health of teens. We don’t want to duplicate what they’re doing. But we do want to collaborate with them. And we’re grateful that You. Me. We. All has helped us identify some teens to join our teen advisory committee. 


We, as a society, are really good at solving problems from 20,000 feet. But if you truly want to help, you have to get in the proximity of the people you want to help. 


Sometimes I look at my 15-year-old and I can’t connect to any of the things she likes – but they’re awesome for her. So that tells me we need to have teens telling us what teens like, in order for more teens to gather here. 


We want to assemble kids from different schools, from different backgrounds – a true cross-section of teens ages 14 to 18 –  to tell us, “Hey, this is what we need from the Y. This is what’s missing if you want to create cool spaces for teens to hang out.”

Maybe it’s a space to play Dungeons and Dragons or an opportunity to play music together – or maybe it’s something totally different. We know that not all kids are into playing basketball or lifting weights, and we want to continue to expand our teen programming to fill in those gaps. People often think of the Y as just a place to work out, but it is so much more than that. It’s a true community center – where people from all walks of life can find their people and support one another. 


Historically, we’ve successfully created a lot of micro-communities at the Y. And it always manifests in important, supportive relationships. For example, we have a group that comes to lift weights at 5 a.m. And when somebody from the group doesn’t show up for a couple of days, people are worried – and they come to my office to find out how to check up on that person. 


Learn more about programs offered at the Y and other teen activities including their Leaders in Training program, lifeguard training programs, and programming for neurodiverse youth and families.


Q: What should teens who are interested in being part of the teen advisory committee do?


We plan to start meeting in April, but we still have room for more committee members! We are looking for a diverse group of 14 to 18-year-olds, but we might make an exception for a 13-year-old. 

Kersey Alstrom, Youth Director
Kersey Alstrom, Youth Director

Teens will receive volunteer hours and need to be available to meet once a month – either in-person or online, whatever works best.

If you know a teen that’s interested, have them reach out to Kersey Alstrom, Youth Director for the downtown Boise YMCA at Kersey.Alstrom@ymcatvidaho.org.


A lot of organizations say they’re a learning organization. But they don’t realize that learning looks like failure. Here, at the Y, we recognize that we get better by failing better and we want to help model that for kids.


Q: What is the YMCA’s philosophy towards helping kids be more active, try out new activities and achieve their goals?


Everything we do at the Downtown Boise YMCA is guided by our four core values:

  • Honesty. Honesty means if we ask you a question, it's not because you're in trouble. It just means we need an honest answer so we can help you.

  • Caring. Caring means we care for everybody – and that includes ourselves. 

  • Responsibility. Responsibility means however you found this space, that's how the space is going to be when you leave. 

  • Respect. Respect means that we’re first going to respect ourselves, and then we're going to give the same level of respect to everybody around us.


We know that people’s goals are reached through a supportive environment. And we want to help people reach their goals. So, if a teen who’s training to be a lifeguard misses a few shifts, we ask them, “What’s happening that you’re not able to make your shift?” And then we problem solve together.

I’ve worked in a lot of places and I’ve never found a place like the YMCA that allows you to make mistakes and works with you through those mistakes in a very constructive way. 


When young adults stick with us to work as lifeguards for a few years, we see tremendous personal growth. And they develop very practical skills. They learn to problem solve, hold eye contact, and have the confidence to course correct others – not to mention save a life.


Q: What’s your opinion around the societal pressure for kids to specialize in a specific sport or activity early versus continued exploration of activities?


I believe all people of all ages need activity. And we know that activity releases endorphins – those magic, feel-good chemicals. So regular activity is good for us, no matter what. 


When parents ask me about whether or not their kid should specialize, I can’t tell them if that’s the right choice or not. But I do know that there are a lot more sports-related injuries in 17, 18, 19-year-olds that a decade ago were only seen in 27, 28, and 29-year-old athletes. 


And yes, we have competitive teams at the Y, like our swim team, but if a kid wants to take a break from the team, we’ll always say, “Sure, take a break and we’ll see you when you get back.” Or we’ll say, “Oh, you’ve been a runner and now you want to switch to throwing javelin. OK, let’s work on that.”

The Y is a great place to come try out something new. For example, our basketball teams have three levels, so if you’ve never played before, there’s still a team for you. And it’s low-pressure – they’ll stop mid-game to explain the rules. 


And if a kid loves to swim, but isn’t sure they want to do it competitively, they can start out on our recreational team and see how it feels. 


I always tell parents to take their cues off their kids. If your child is still happy doing a specific activity or sport, let them do it. But if that changes, you have to listen to them – even if you’ve invested tons of time and thousands of dollars on training or equipment. If they’re done, they’re done.


Q: The Y is very committed to access for all. Tell us more about that.


We don’t turn anyone away for the inability to pay. And that is so important to us. For example, many kids in our soccer league come from low-resourced homes. And they would never be able to play as a team, have jerseys, and organized games – if not for financial assistance. 


We also have over 30 childcare facilities in the valley, four brick and mortar facilities, plus our summer camp facility at Horsethief Reservoir. And we spend more than 7 million dollars a year making sure that all kids have access to our summer camps, programs and facilities, which means we rely heavily on donations. And we accept donations in any form – cash, pledges, stock.


Q: The new downtown facility will have new spaces that the current facility does not. What will those be – and when will the new facility be finished?


We are on track for the new downtown facility to be complete by late 2026. Unlike our current facility, it will include a cool “maker space” – a space for kids to come and express their creativity, with computers, printers, editing software, and art supplies to explore art, video and music. 


We’ll also have a “THRIVE Center,” thanks to Blue Cross of Idaho, just like we have at the Tomlinson South Meridian Y that specifically serves neurodiverse kids and families – and was developed based on lots of input directly from neurodiverse kids and families.

Our Blue Cross of Idaho THRIVE Center in Meridian offers free  “Firefly nights” – and so will the new Boise center – where parents can bring neurodiverse kids (who typically can’t be unsupervised) to be cared for 1-on-1 by a BSU nursing student. We’ll also have a “Teen Life Skills” program, a series of evenings where neurodiverse teens learn to cook, balance a checkbook, build a resume or prepare to interview for a job.


Read our blog post about Maisa and how to support the mental health of neurodiverse teens or read teen-focused articles (written by teens for teens) about how their online experiences have impacted them. 


Q: You’re a parent of three kids – ages 14 to 18. How is their childhood different from yours?


My kids – all teens – have very different pressures on them than we did. In my day, we had a group of 5 to 10  friends – and they were your entire universe. If you did something that wasn’t socially acceptable, those friends checked you and let you know. And you could course correct. And if you had a different opinion than one of your friends, you talked about it, in person. 


We didn’t have the ability to get “confirmation bias” from someone a billion miles away. You couldn’t just dismiss what a friend was saying and then find 10 people on the Internet who would tell you that you’re 100% correct. 


And then there’s the fact that teens are walking around with this device in their hands that gives them access to the entirety of the human experience, an unbound world of information – the good and the bad. But they don’t yet have the education and context to interpret what it all  means. 


There’s also the fact that everything teens do today is recorded and posted – so they’re living in a constant feedback loop. And while they have access to so many people, that access doesn’t always help them feel connected and supported. 


We often talk about the epidemic of loneliness when it comes to older adults. But we don’t always realize that teens can easily fall into that epidemic as well. They can self-isolate, decide something about themselves – and have that become their truth. By creating more spaces for teens to hang out, we want to help prevent that self-isolation that can be so harmful for teens’ mental health.


 

Resources to learn more


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