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The YMCA was founded in London,
England, in 1884 by
George Williams and a dozen or so friends who lived and worked as clerks
in a drapery-a forerunner of dry-goods and department stores. Their goal
was to save fellow live-in clerks from the wicked life on the London
streets. The first members were evangelical Protestants who prayed and
studied the Bible as an alternative to vice. The YMCA has always been
nonsectarian and today accepts all faiths at all levels of the
organization, despite its unchanging name, Young Men's Christian Association.
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