What the Southside Virginia Family YMCA has done in the past 17 months is nothing short of amazing and extraordinary — and the beneficiaries are members of this community.

There’s no doubt that what the Y is doing will have a long lasting powerful impact on the Heart of Virginia.

The work of the Y’s staff, board of directors, donors and supporters deserves the highest of commendation.

The news that the YMCA will receive a $150,000 matching grant from Centra Southside Community Hospital over the course of the next three years, along with its announcement of the process of working with FACES Food Pantry to offer two acres of the Y’s 36 acres in order to allow the pantry to build a larger building to operate out of should is music to my ears — as it should be to everyone else’s who lives in this community.

“This is a major step in our development and rebirth, and it fills me with pride that Centra Southside believes in us and our mission so much as to put forth this much money,” said Y Board of Directors Vice Chairman Brad Watson.

With the good deeds and actions of the Y, the community, along with the hospital, should believe in the Y and its mission by supporting it.

Watson said in March 2016, the pool had not been working for two-and-a-half-years, combined with a $2.1 million mortgage with a monthly payment of $19,000, $80,000 worth of bills owed, no aquatics director, no chief executive officer and no money in the bank.

All that’s changed.

I’m proud of the progress and hard work those associated with the Y have endured to get the organization where it is today — which certainly is a stark difference to what it was in 2016.

It’s my hope that the seeds sown through the hard work of the Y will continue to reap benefits for the entire population living in the Heart of Virginia.

JORDAN MILES is managing editor of The Farmville Herald and Farmville Newsmedia LLC. His email address is Jordan.Miles@FarmvilleHerald.com.