Tom Taylor of Fox Island has been involved with the YMCA since 1972, back when he was a member and a volunteer at the former club in a brick building on Market Street in Tacoma, long before the Y made its way to Gig Harbor.

Now, six years after the Gig Harbor Family YMCA opened, it has been renamed in Taylor’s honor.

“It’s awe-inspiring to me, because it’s something that, since 1987, when we started focusing on getting the Y in Gig Harbor, has always been a dream,” Taylor said. “Not so much to have the name on the building, but just to have that facility available.”

“The name is just the frosting on the cake,” he added.

The facility at 10550 Harbor Hill Drive was set to be renamed the Tom Taylor Family YMCA during a ceremony this morning.

Last week, Bob Ecklund, the president and CEO of YMCA of Pierce and Kitsap counties, announced the name change along with Taylor’s second $500,000 donation to the Y.

The donation will go toward the Y’s capital campaign for the development of its phase-two expansion. Plans mostly focus on youth services and a new 10,500-square-foot youth gym, an expanded nursery and drop-in child care area, an “adventure zone” for elementary-aged children and a larger teen center.

Forty-three percent of the Gig Harbor Y’s users are children and teens, Ecklund said.

“Tom Taylor was instrumental in the campaign to build phase one,” Ecklund said.

Taylor has been on the YMCA board for 33 years and served as a member of the Y’s branch advisory council. He first donated $500,000 to the construction of the Gig Harbor facility, which opened in 2007.

Ecklund approached Taylor and his wife, Jackie, as the phase two development began to progress, to ask if they would consider giving half a million more in exchange for naming rights to the facility. The Taylors jumped at the chance.

“I’ve watched the Y grow, from (1972) until now and have been very impressed with the quality of the operation, the quality of the staff and the programs,” said Taylor, an insurance broker who co-owns a firm in Tacoma.

He said the YMCA’s inclusiveness is one of the main reasons he’s participated in the organization all these years. Nineteen percent of the 100,000 members of the Pierce-Kitsap YMCA receive financial assistance, Taylor said, a statistic he’s proud of and would like to grow.

“No one’s turned away,” he said. “They make such efforts to accommodate anyone who wants to use the Y facilities.”

But Taylor also has a personal stake in the long-term success of the Gig Harbor Y – his children and grandchildren. A 47-year Fox Island resident, Taylor took his own kids to classes and swim lessons at the Y, and his daughter, who now lives in Rosedale, takes his grandchildren to do the same.

Taylor’s granddaughter was the first person to swim in the Gig Harbor Y’s pool when it first opened. She was only 14 months old.

“I want my grandchildren, and everyone’s grandchildren, to have as good accommodations as possible, and their children on through the generations,” Taylor said. “I think investment now is going to pay off very comfortably in the generations to come.”

Ecklund said he hopes Taylor’s donation serves as an inspiration for the community, and for other potential donors.

“It shows the lifelong impact of their family on our Y,” he said. “They see what the Y is doing, for their children and their grandchildren, and for all generations.”

Phase-two expansion will require $3 million before it can move forward, meaning the Y must still seek out more “major league” donors like Taylor, Ecklund said.

The Y has requested $750,000 in government support, and the rest of the budget likely will come from private donations.

PenMet Parks, which previously gave $1.5 million for the pool at the Y, and the City of Gig Harbor are both considering one-time capital gifts.

At Ecklund’s announcement last week during a public affairs forum at Cottesmore of Life Care, Gig Harbor Mayor Chuck Hunter said he considered the Y to be a pioneer in the community, a pillar of development in the up-and-coming Gig Harbor North neighborhood.

If $3 million can be raised in the first two quarters of the year, Ecklund said, construction could begin on the Y expansion in June. The Y already has hired the Tacoma architectural firm BCRA Design to draw up plans, and construction will be complete by the end of the year if it begins on schedule.

Taylor hopes to stay as involved with the Y as he’s always been. He said he’d like to participate in nutritional programming, part of the Y’s goals of developing healthy eating habits among children.

“I hope to have an impact going forward, providing whatever insight I can, wherever I can,” he said.