The latest episode of The Movement takes us to the Atchison Family YMCA — and to a story 40 years in the making.
In Atchison, Kansas, there was once a street called Division.
Everyone in town knew what the name had come to mean, not the county line it was drawn for, but the line it became. A little girl grew up on that street. A woman in her community saw her, really saw her, and paid her preschool tuition so she could attend the Atchison YMCA. Then came swim lessons, a neighbor who drove her there, a tadpole certificate, and something harder to name: the feeling of being invested in.
Across town, another girl couldn't stay out of the Y pool. The aquatics director noticed and asked a question that changed everything: "You love to swim so much, why don't you swim for me?" The Y became her first job. Swim instructor. Lifeguard. First lessons in leadership, compassion, and what it means to represent something bigger than yourself.
Forty years later, on the newest episode of The Movement, those two girls sat down together at the Atchison Family YMCA/Cray Community Center with host and YMCA of Greater Kansas City President & CEO Mark Hulet.
One of them is India Webb Boulton, attorney and member of the YMCA of Greater Kansas City Board of Directors.
The other is La Rochelle Young, the Mayor of Atchison.
"Somebody Sees Something in Me"
India's Y story starts with a sponsorship. A woman in the community, someone with no obligation to her, covered the cost of preschool at the Y when her family couldn't. What stayed with India wasn't just the opportunity. It was what the gift said.
"I felt like I was special," she recalls. "Somebody sees something in me; I'm going to do well in this preschool because somebody sees something in me."
That spark carried her from Atchison to the University of Kansas, to law school, to a legal career spanning Minnesota and Kansas City, and eventually back to the Y, first on the Linwood YMCA Mission Board during its capital campaign in Kansas City's urban core, and today on the association's Board of Directors.
The sponsored kid became the builder. That's the first full circle.
A First Job That Never Left the Résumé
For Mayor Young, the Y wasn't a sponsorship; it was a start. Teaching swim lessons taught her how to communicate with parents, with bosses, with kids who looked up to her around town. It taught her that when you wear the Y's name, you carry its reputation with you.
One memory stands above the rest: a young child, terrified of the water after significant trauma, arms locked around her neck. Week by week, she helped that child let go, to go under, to float, to trust. "It helped me understand compassion," she says, "and what belonging can do."
That first job led to internships in Washington, years of public service, work with the Kansas Department for Children and Families, and eventually, the mayor's office of her hometown. Ask her today, and she'll tell you: the YMCA is still on her résumé.
That's the second full circle.
The Street That Changed Its Name
Both women grew up knowing exactly what Division Street meant in Atchison. But inside the walls of the Y, India says, that line never existed. "It wasn't a segregated space. It was a safe place for this community, a place where people gathered, of all races. It was for everybody."
For thirty years, residents tried to change the street's name and couldn't. Then, in the summer of 2020, three Atchison High School students decided to try again. They went door to door gathering testimonies. They stood before the City Commission with 500 signatures. Residents lined the street for blocks in prayer: monks, police officers, teachers, commissioners. On July 20, 2020, the Commission voted 5–0.
Division Street became Unity Street.
"It really was a sigh of relief," says India, who grew up on that street. "This is truly representative of the community that I know, where people really do come together."
And here's the part that ties it all together: the young people who changed that street name were about the same age India and La Rochelle were when the Y was shaping them. A new generation, already proving the thesis.
The Return on Investing in a Child
This is the heart of the episode, and the heart of Atchison: a community that invests in its young people gets its future back with interest.
One woman's generosity produced an attorney who now helps govern ten YMCAs across the Kansas City metro. One aquatics director's invitation produced a mayor, whose own daughter is now in her fourth year as a lifeguard at the very same Y. Six generations of Atchisonians walk through the doors of a Y that has served this town since 1872, in a building the community itself raised nearly $10 million to expand. Just this month, a new member signed up at age 98.
Asked what she'd tell someone in a position to be "that person" for a kid in their town, India didn't hesitate:
"Your investment can spark a light in a small child. Don't be afraid to give. Giving goes beyond just the person you're giving to, you can look at La Rochelle and myself. We're now giving back. And we hope what we're doing creates a legacy that will continue to give back."
Be the One Who Shows Up
Somewhere in Atchison right now, somewhere in every one of our communities, there's a kid standing at the edge of a pool. You can be the person who shows up for them, the way people showed up for a future board member and a future mayor: through a program, a membership, a volunteer hour, a gift.
Watch or Listen
Watch or listen to this episode of The Movement and learn how empathy, storytelling, and inclusion can help build a stronger, more compassionate Kansas City.
