New members, guests and visitors filled the new Gloucester Family YMCA branch for its ribbon-cutting ceremony on Friday morning in Main Street Center. The facility opened that same day, achieving a decades-long goal a group of people had to open a YMCA in Gloucester.

“What a day,” said Stacia Roeth, Chief Operating Officer of the Peninsula Metropolitan YMCA, just before the ceremony. “The conversation about a branch in Gloucester started in the 1970s and here we are in 2016 about to cut the ribbon to this beautiful new facility.”

She said the facility would not have been possible if not for the hard work and commitment of the community members and volunteers who have spent countless hours “making the dream of the Gloucester Y become a reality.”

She also thanked the Gloucester Main Street Preservation Trust for helping secure the space inside Main Street Center as well as the contractors who completed the work. “I just thank you all for your ...