The Cumberland County YMCA owes Scarborough an explanation and a plan to redirect all the energy that has gone into raising $1 million for a new YMCA.

The YMCA announced Friday it was abandoning its campaign to raise $9 million to build a Y on Route 1 in Scarborough, between Tim Horton’s and Big 20 Bowling Center.

The announcement came as a great disappointment to those who were excited about the prospect of having a YMCA in town. Even though some people in Scarborough were aware that the Y had been struggling to raise an ambitious amount of money, the announcement caught many people by surprise, including town officials and members of the advisory board.

“We were surprised it happened so fast. We’d like to see it go on for another three to six months,” said Gary O’Donnell, the chairman of the advisory board.

Another advisory board member, John Massengill, said nobody on the board knew about the decision until last Thursday or Friday – the day the Y sent out a press release announcing the decision. He said the board had even discussed recently a last-ditch effort to raise money before giving up.

Scarborough town officials were surprised by the announcement as well. “It caught me completely off guard,” said Town Manager Ron Owens. “They always seemed so optimistic and confident that they’d reach their goal. I think that this is a big loss for the town.”

The loss comes after voters defeated a proposed library expansion and a senior center. With the plan to build a YMCA now abandoned, some in town must be wondering whether the town will be building anything but schools for the foreseeable future.

The chief executive officer of the Cumberland County YMCA, Helen Brena, said the Y was relying on the advice of a hired consulting firm when it decided to abandon the effort. The firm told the Y it would be futile to continue the effort. In three years, the Y had raised only $1 million of the $9 million goal. Much of that ($300,000) had come from one donor, Hannaford Bros. Brena declined to speculate on why people were unwilling to give. She also failed to explain why the YMCA executive committee made the decision without consulting members of the advisory board.

There’s no doubt that at the rate it was going, Scarborough wouldn’t have enough money to build a Y until about 2030, likely long after the day many donors would be hanging up their goggles. However, it seems the Y pulled out of this effort awfully quickly.

There was no last-minute appeal, no warning to the public that if things didn’t turn around the effort would have to be abandoned. If this announcement came as a surprise to advisory board members and town officials, it likely came as a surprise to donors as well. It would seem that, considering all the money that’s already been pledged, donors and the public would deserve at least a chance to turn this effort around.

If the Y is unwilling to continue the effort for any period of time, members of the advisory board and donors should at least get an opportunity to redirect this money they helped raise toward some other worthy goal. It would seem that those donors who don’t want their money back would at least like to see it stay in Scarborough, rather than going to a YMCA that most Scarborough residents won’t use.

-Brendan Moran, editor