WILKES-BARRE – Hundreds of people will gather Saturday evening, April 5, 2025, for a night of fun with great food and exciting basketball games, all to benefit the programs and services of the Wyoming Valley Catholic Youth Center.
The CYC will hold its annual ‘March Madness’ event at the Westmoreland Club, South Franklin Street, Wilkes-Barre, from 6 to 11 p.m.
The spirit of March Madness will be everywhere, including with the Final Four basketball games broadcast live on large screens throughout the evening.
The CYC March Madness event is one of the CYC’s largest fundraisers of the year. For those who cannot participate in person, there is an online auction available that opened on Wednesday. Dozens of items, including sports memorabilia, a trip to Walt Disney World, and much more, are available via online auction. All of the items can be viewed here.
The Wyoming Valley Catholic Youth Center has been a fixture in downtown Wilkes-Barre for decades, providing a solid foundation and serving as a home away from home for area youths and families.
The CYC is the largest single-site childcare center in Luzerne County. The facility serves children and families throughout Luzerne County:
- There are currently 247 children enrolled in the 24-hour-a-day childcare program. Of that number, 110 are aged six months to five years. The other 137 children participate in the CYC before/after-school program
- The CYC served a total of 687 children during the 2024 calendar year in its day care/school-aged program
- The CYC serves nearly 10,000 meals a month to the children in our care
- This past winter, 478 children participated in youth basketball leagues
Over its many decades of service to the community, the CYC has developed the personalities, gifts, talents and goals of thousands of young men and women while serving as a major recreation agency.
The CYC’s original structure consisted of multipurpose rooms for programming and special events. A 1959 expansion brought a gymnasium and swimming pool. More land was purchased in the 1970s that allowed for the construction of outdoor basketball and tennis courts and a playground. Through a capital expansion/improvement program, the CYC added a state-of-the-art aquatic center, converted the existing swimming pool into an additional gymnasium, remodeled its main gymnasium, and purchased land to create a park at the rear of the facility.
The Olympic-size pool and community-use indoor basketball court, among other recreational amenities, are community value-adds in the health and wellness arenas, but – even more important in keeping with the CYC’s core mission – they provide outlets for physical health, recreation and socialization for a local population of underprivileged and underserved families who otherwise would lack options for physical exercise, supervised play or coached sport.
Throughout its history, the CYC has evolved to meet changing community needs and now offers social and recreational opportunities to adults and senior citizens as it operates with a motto of “For the Young and the Young at Heart.”
All programming fosters physical, intellectual, and moral development as it combats and prevents substance abuse, delinquency and undesirable or traumatic family circumstances. Ninety-five percent of individuals served are low-income, and they depend on the CYC for unique offerings that include 24-hour childcare, pick-up and drop-off transportation for respite care and drop-in recreation, physical activity, and socialization.