It's a place for fun and exercise for families, but what happened to a 13-year-old boy at a popular Lansing recreational facility is something you'd never expect.
The boy's parents shared their son's story, but they chose to hide their identities to help protect their son. They wanted to tell his story in hopes of bringing about change.
Last March a Lansing mother dropped off her 13-year-old son at the Westside YMCA. He was going swimming.
When she returned to pick him up, something was wrong.
"He was white as a ghost, I didn't know what was wrong with him, I asked him what was wrong with him a few times," said the victim's mother.
After asking a few more times, the boy finally told his mother something happened when he got out of the YMCA pool.
The boy told his mother that when he came back into the locker room there was a man across from him who was masturbating to him.
That man was 33-year-old Donaven Hollingsworth, who had already been convicted of 4th degree criminal sexual conduct in 2001.
She says, he continued to follow her son around the locker room.
"He was right behind him while he was still masturbating," said the victim's mother.
Before Hollingsworth was sentenced this time around the boy detailed the experience in a letter to the judge.
"I was shocked, I was scared, I was worried. I didn't think that it would ever happen to my kid," said the victim's mother.
That's when she called the YMCA.
"I explained to him exactly what happend in the locker room," the victim's mother said.
She says she spoke with the facility's executive director.
"He told me it was my call but he had to warn me that if I did take it further that I would be putting him through a lot of stress and trauma," said the victim's mother.
But Tony Fragale, the President of the YMCA of Lansing, says his organization quickly cooperated with police.
"Our staff is trained to be aware, to notice things and to report immediately any incident that takes place with any member, especially with children," said Fragale.
Fragale admits, YMCA's in Lansing aren't checking to see if any of its patrons are in fact sex offenders.
"Well, the YMCA is an organization that's a public organization and is accessible to all," said Fragale, "We do not personally screen every individual that comes through the YMCA, we take the basic information," said Fragale.
But the young boy's parents says that's the problem. They want to see the organization ask applicants if they've been convicted of a sex crime and if the answer is yes, they want the YMCA to turn them away.
"I think they know how to pick and choose which ones actually should be there, if you're a sex offender you should not be in a facility where children are running," said the victim's Mother.
"If somebody don't wanna be screened, they are always welcome at Fitness USA, it's all males one day, all females the next day- no minors are allowed there," said the victim's father.
"That's something that could be considered, we'd have to get some advice on that as to how practical that is or if it's something that's actually effective," said Fragale.
The 13-year-old's family says it's the only way to ensure other children won't have to experience what their son did.
In the boy's letter to the judge he wrote, "My parents talked to me about it and I knew it wasn't my fault, but I wonder why it happened to me."
"I thought that he was safe there, I thought that it was a good place for kids to go," said the victim's mother.
"All we wanted from the beginning was for them to change something to make the kids safe like they say they are," said the victim's father.
While the YMCA considers whether or not to make a policy change, the family has canceled its membership and the parents worry about their son's future.
"My son, he'll never get over it, he follows me everywhere, it's like I got a lost puppy," said the victim's father.
The boy also wrote in his letter, "I worry about this happening again and I'm always on guard. I don't trust people and I dont like being alone."
His family says it's something that is going to stay with him forever.
It was a matter of seconds that have forever changed this family.
A second portion of this report will air Wednesday at 6.
