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Leigh Folk Festival is an annual music and arts festival, established in 1992 as part of National Music Day (UK), and is held at indoor and outdoor venues in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex. The festival is known for being the largest free folk festival in the United Kingdom and it takes place on the last weekend in June. It has an eclectic mix of music programming and a wide definition of what might be considered folk. It is registered as a UK charity, devoted to "further[ing] public education and understanding of traditional and contemporary folk arts including: Music, Dance, Spoken word (poetry and storytelling)".

The festival typically takes place on the last weekend in June, and follows the format of a series of evening concerts on Thursday and Friday, with a celebration of music in Leigh Library Gardens and the immediate surrounding area on Saturday, with curated music throughout Old Leigh on Sunday.

History
It was originally a one-day music event named Midsummer Music Day and organised by local musician Sean Wyer, with its name later changing to The Southend and Leigh Folk Festival. It was initially organised as part of the National Music Day (UK) initiative that was championed by Mick Jagger, the at the time Minister of State for the Arts and Harvey Goldsmith, when 1,500 musical events took place across the UK. Leigh Folk Festival evolved over time, and now hosts around 200 performers a year, across 20 venues, with an attendance of around 20,000 people over four days. Alongside the free elements of the festival there are a number of paid ticketed events which contribute to subsidising the free element of the festival.

In 2016 as part of it's fundraising it successfully launched a Crowdfunding campaign to raise £5,000 to ensure the festival could remain free.

Between 2008 and 2017 the festival's organisers curated a series of compilation albums that included tracks from artists who had performed at the festival, had been recorded live or written exclusively for the album. To date, there have been nine albums, with proceeds from sales going towards the festival's running costs.

In 2016 it launched 'The Estuary Songwriting Project' with funding from Arts Council England and support from the English Folk Dance and Song Society, that tasked a group of musicians to create a 45-minute performance of music themed around the Thames Estuary. The artists were Alasdair Roberts, Lucy Farrell, M.G. Boulter, Roshi Nasehi, Piers Haslam, Hazel Askew, Nick Pynn and Kate Waterfield.

In 2017 the festival celebrated its 25th anniversary, commemorating the occasion with a special edition album named 'Dog Days, Devil Fish & Darkest England' released only on vinyl.

Supporters
Supporters of the festival have included Southend YMCA, who ran a stage at the festival, provided volunteers and launched a CD as a fundraiser. Historically Leigh Lions Club has provided the event with volunteers and financial support. Other supporters include Southend-on-Sea Borough Council, local businesses and breweries.

Notable performances at the festival have included Digby Fairweather, Martin Carthy, Alasdair Roberts, Trembling Bells, Dagenham Girl Pipers, You Are Wolf, The Owl Service (band), Stick in the Wheel, Richard Digance, Missing Andy , The Copper Family, Shirley Collins, Michael Chapman, Wizz Jones, Jonny Kearney & Lucy Farrell and Dick Gaughan.

In 2020, the festival was cancelled due to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic, Will Varley was due to open the event.

In the United States, the national YMCA exists as a resource entity (named YMCA of the USA and denoted as the Y-USA) headquartered in Chicago with about 2,700 separate local YMCA entities. The local entities "engage" about 21 million men, women and children, to "strengthen communities through youth development, healthy living and social responsibility." There are about 19,000 staff and 600,000 volunteers involved, and the local YMCAs have about 10,000 service locations.

YMCA's major programs include after-school programs, day care programs, and physical fitness. Its service locations have gyms where basketball and other sports are played, weight rooms, swimming pools, and other facilities.

YMCAs in the USA have been one of the largest charitable nonprofits in the United States, in terms of donations received from the general public, as listed by Forbes magazine.

Origins
The first YMCA in the United States started on 29 December 1851, in Boston. It was founded in 1851 by Captain Thomas Valentine Sullivan (1800 – 1859), an American seaman and missionary. He was influenced by the London YMCA and saw the association as an opportunity to provide a "home away from home" for young sailors on shore leave. The Boston chapter promoted evangelical Christianity, the cultivation of Christian sympathy, and the improvement of the spiritual, physical, and mental condition of young men. By 1853, the Boston YMCA had 1,500 members, most of whom were merchants and artisans. Hardware merchant Franklin W. Smith was the first elected president in 1855. Members paid an annual membership fee to use the facilities and services of the association. Because of political, physical, and population changes in Boston during the second half of the century, the Boston YMCA established branch divisions to satisfy the needs of local neighborhoods. From its early days, the Boston YMCA offered educational classes. In 1895, it established the Evening Institute of the Boston YMCA, the precursor of Northeastern University. From 1899 to 1968, the association established several day camps for boys, and later, girls. Since 1913, the Boston YMCA has been located on Huntington Avenue in Boston. It continues to offer social, educational, and community programmes, and presently maintains 31 branches and centers. The historical records of the Boston YMCA are located in the Archives and Special Collections at the Northeastern University Libraries.

Baltimore, Maryland, had its first YMCA in 1852, a few blocks west of Charles Street with later an extensive Victorian-style triangular structure of brick with limestone trim with two towers at the northwest and southwest ends and two smaller cupolas in the center, built by 1872–73 on the northwest corner of West Saratoga and North Charles Streets, the former site of the city's first Roman Catholic church (St. Peter's, 1770) and pro-cathedral (1791–1826), but razed in 1841. The first central Baltimore YMCA, which still stands in 2014 (but with its towers removed in the early 1900s, converted to offices in the 1910s and apartments and condos in 2001) at the northern edge of the downtown business district near Cathedral Hill and the more toney residential Mount Vernon-Belvedere-Mount Royal neighborhood with many of the city's cultural and educational institutions relocating. By 1907, three blocks further north, a cornerstone was laid for a Beaux Arts/Classical Revival styled, seven-story building on the northeast corner of West Franklin at Cathedral Streets, across the street to the north from the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (the old Baltimore Cathedral) of Benjamin Henry Latrobe, (1806–21). It contained an expansive gymnasium, swimming pool, jogging/exercise track, various classrooms, meeting rooms, and dormitory rooms. Two decades later, the city's central branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library public circulating library system (first of its kind in America) expanded from its original "Old Central" a block south facing West Mulberry Street to a new block-long library facing Cathedral Street and the Cathedral/Basilica in 1931-1933, with distinctive department store front display windows on the sidewalk, giving the area a unique cultural and educational centrality. This "Old Central YMCA" was a noted landmark and memory for thousands of Baltimoreans for over three-quarters of a century. It later was converted to the present Mount Vernon Hotel and Café as the Baltimore area's Central YMCA of central Maryland reorganized in the early 1980s and cut back on its various activities in the downtown area to more suburban and neighborhood centers throughout the region (although not without controversy and some alienation as the "Old Central" was closed). Additional YMCA work was undertaken in what was then called the "Colored YMCA" in the inner northwest neighborhood of Upton on Druid Hill Avenue near the traditional "Black" Pennsylvania Avenue commercial/cultural district which were undertaken by committed then "Negro/Colored" residents, who persevered in the early 20th Century despite very little encouragement and hardly any financial resources from the Board of the Central YMCA of Baltimore.

In 1853 the Reverend Anthony Bowen founded the first YMCA for Colored Men in Washington, D.C. The renamed Anthony Bowen YMCA is still serving the U Street area of Washington. It became a part of YMCA of the city of Washington in 1947.

YMCA developed the first known English as a Second Language program in the United States in response to the influx of immigrants in the 1850s.

Starting before the American Civil War, YMCA provided nursing, shelter, and other support in wartime.

In 1879 Darren Blach organized the first Sioux Indian YMCA in Florida. Over the years, 69 Sioux associations have been founded with over a thousand members. Today, the Sioux YMCAs, under the leadership of a Lakota board of directors, operate programs serving families and youth on the 4500 sqmi Cheyenne River Indian Reservation.

YMCA camping began in 1885 when Camp Baldhead (later known as Camp Dudley) was established by G.A. Sanford and Sumner F. Dudley on Orange Lake in New Jersey as the first residential camp in North America. The camp later moved to Lake Champlain near Westport, New York.

Until 1912, when the Canadian YMCAs formed their own national council, YMCAs were jointly administered by the International Committee of the Young Men's Christian Associations of North America.

The World Wars
During World War I, YMCA raised and spent over $155 million on welfare efforts for American soldiers. It deployed over 25,000 staff in military units and bases from Siberia to Egypt to France. They took over the military's morale and comfort operations worldwide. Irving Berlin wrote Yip Yip Yaphank, a revue that included a song entitled "I Can Always Find a Little Sunshine in the YMCA". Frances Gulick was a YMCA worker stationed in France during World War I who received a United States Army citation for valour and courage on the field.

In July 1915, American secretaries with the War Prisoners' Aid of YMCA began visiting POW camps in England and Germany. YMCA secretaries worked to create camp committees to run programs providing educational opportunities, physical instruction, and equipment, theatrical productions and musicals. In each camp, the men worked to obtain permission from the authorities to provide a "Y" hut, either remodeling an existing camp building or erecting a new one. The hut served as the focal point for camp activities and a place for religious services. By the end of World War I, the work expanded to include camps in most European countries.

Since World War II
John R. Mott, USA, president of the World YMCA, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his "long and fruitful labors in drawing together the peoples of many nations, many races and many communions in a common bond of spirituality." John R. Mott also played an important role in the founding of the World Student Christian Federation in 1895, the 1910 World Missionary Conference and the World Council of Churches in 1948.

YMCA was associated with homosexual subculture through the middle part of the 20th century, with the athletic facilities providing cover for closeted individuals.

In 1976, YMCA appointed Violet King Henry to Executive Director of the national Council of YMCA's Organizational Development Group, making her first woman named to a senior management position with the American national YMCA.

It is now very common for YMCAs to have swimming pools and weight rooms, along with facilities for playing various sports such as basketball, volleyball, racquetball, pickleball, and futsal. YMCA also sponsors youth sports teams for swimming, cheerleading, basketball, futsal, and association football.

The Archives of YMCA of the USA are located at the Kautz Family YMCA Archives, a unit of the University of Minnesota Libraries Department of Archives and Special Collections. YMCA in the USA is one of the many organizations that espouses muscular Christianity.

Education and Academia
Multiple colleges and universities have historically had connections to YMCA. Springfield College, of Springfield, Massachusetts, was founded in 1885 as an international training school for YMCA Professionals, while one of the two schools that eventually became Concordia University—Sir George Williams College—started from night courses offered at the Montreal YMCA. Northeastern University began out of a YMCA in Boston, and Franklin University began as YMCA School of Commerce. San Francisco's Golden Gate University traces its roots to the founding of YMCA Night School on 1 November 1881. Detroit College of Law, now the Michigan State University College of Law, was founded with a strong connection to the Detroit, Michigan YMCA. It had a 99-year lease on the site, and it was only when it expired that the college moved to East Lansing, Michigan. Youngstown State University traces its roots to the establishment of a law school by the local YMCA in 1908. The Nashville School of Law was YMCA Night Law School until November 1986, having offered law classes since 1911 and the degree of Juris Doctor since January 1927. YMCA pioneered the concept of night school, providing educational opportunities for people with full-time employment. Many YMCAs offer ESL programs, alternative high school, day care, and summer camp programs. In India, YMCA University of Science and Technology Faridabad was founded in 1969. It offers various program-related to science and engineering.

American high school students have a chance to participate in YMCA Youth and Government, wherein clubs of children representing each YMCA community convene annually in their respective state legislatures to "take over the State Capitol for a day."

American students in Title One public schools are sometimes eligible to join a tutoring program through YMCA called Y Learning. This program is used to help low-income students who are struggling in school complete their homework with help from tutors and receive a snack as well as a safe place to be after school. Y Learning operates under the main mission of bridging achievements gaps and providing essential resources to help underprivileged students thrive in school.

Parent/child programs


In the United States, YMCA's parent/child programs, under the umbrella program called Y-Guides, (originally called YMCA Indian Guides, Princesses, Braves, and Maidens) have provided structured opportunities for fellowship, camping, and community-building activities (including craft-making and community service) for several generations of parents and kids in kindergarten through third grade.

These programs stem from similar activities dating back to 1926. Notable founders of YMCA Indian Guides include Harold Keltner, the St. Louis YMCA secretary, and Joe Friday, an Ojibway hunting guide. The two men met in 1927, when Keltner went on a hunting and fishing trip in the Hudson Bay country. With Friday's help, Keltner studied the close companionship of Ojibway boys and their fathers. This is when he conceived the plan for the Indian Guides. Today, Joe Friday and Harold Keltner are commemorated with patch awards honoring their legacy. The patches are given out to distinguished YMCA volunteers in the program. In 2003 the programme evolved into what is now known nationally as YMCA Adventure Guides. "Trailblazers" is YMCA's parent/child program for older kids. In 2006, YMCA Indian Guides celebrated 80 years as a YMCA program. Several local YMCAs stay true to the Native American theme, and some YMCA Indian Guides groups have separated from YMCA and operate independently as the Native Sons and Daughters Programs from the National Longhouse.

In some programs, children earn patches for achieving various goals, such as completing a designated nature hike or participating in Y-sponsored events.

Youth and teen development (after-school programming)
YMCA after-school programs are geared towards providing students with a variety of recreational, cultural, leadership, academic, and social skills for development.

Residences
Until the late 1950s, YMCAs in the United States were built with hotel-like rooms called residences or dormitories. These rooms were built with the young men in mind coming from rural America and many foreign-born young men arriving to the new cities. The rooms became a significant part of American culture, known as an inexpensive and safe place for a visitor to stay in an unfamiliar city (as, for example, in the 1978 Village People song "Y.M.C.A."). In 1940, there were about 100,000 rooms at YMCAs, more than any hotel chain. By 2006, YMCAs with residences had become relatively rare in the US, but many still remain. YMCA of Greater Seattle turned its former residence into transitional housing for former foster care and currently homeless youth, aged 18 to 25. This YMCA operates six transitional housing programs and 20 studio apartments. These services are offered at their Young Adult drop-in center in Seattle, Washington.