When Pat Sanders invited classmates from the Newport-Mesa Family YMCA to lunch about 10 years ago, she had no idea she was laying the groundwork for a support network that would carry dozens of members through birthdays, funerals, a global pandemic and more.
She’d noticed she had a lot in common with fellow members of the YMCA’s water exercise classes, she said, and was looking for a way to channel the camaraderie that was building among them in the pool into real life.
So she invited a few people to lunch, started an email chain to help them keep in touch, and waited to see what would happen.
“When you leave a lunch you always say, ‘This was fun, let’s do it again sometime,’ and it never happens,” said Sanders, 83, of Newport Beach. “And I thought to myself, ‘Well, I’m just going to start having luncheons once a month and we’ll see who shows up.’”
Today, the fledgling lunch crew has blossomed into what participants call The Mermaids, a group of more than 90 people who’ve taken the YMCA’s Deep Water Aquafit class for decades and have built a strong sense of community by caring for YMCA members, families and staff.
The group – its mostly women, ages 55 to 85 – cares for members by holding birthday and holiday celebrations and other special events, and cares for others by lifting up YMCA staff and raising money for YMCA needs.