Every year the Auburn Valley YMCA serves about 22,000 South King County people on about a fifth of its 17-acre campus on Perimeter Road.

And when the top folks at the YMCA considered that unused space in light of the community’s deep need for more recreational activities — particularly for kids and families — they decided they could do a lot more: they could “activate” the unused acreage to create a more complete place for families to come together.

On Monday the Auburn YMCA launched its $3 million Healthy Kids Campus expansion campaign to provide money for renovated indoor recreation space, expanded outdoor spaces and a state-of-the-art day camp.

King County and Councilman Pete von Reichbauer are helping to make the Healthy Kids Campus happen. When the council adopted its 2016-2017 budget on Monday, it put $500,000 in there for the YMCA’s project.

“I had a chance to tour the facility a month ago, realized that the facility addresses not just young people but the entire spectrum of ages, so I wanted to give them a kick start with a very large commitment of $500,000 to their overall budget,” von Reichbauer said Nov. 16 at the Good Eggs breakfast at Cafe Pacific on Auburn Way North.

“The Auburn YMCA’s vision to meet the growing needs of South King County youth for their recreational sports activities will be accomplished with the support of King County. This new capital campaign will help the Auburn YMCA expand its impact by increasing the number of children, adults and families served by the Healthy Kids Campus,” von Reichbauer said.

Jason Berry, executive director of the Auburn YMCA, explained what the Healthy Kids Campus will be about.

“We are really trying to look at how we can serve more people, and particularly, how we can keep kids healthy,” Berry said. “So, the question is, how do we activate more spaces that are activating kids to be healthy to play and for families to come together to do those things? Auburn currently has some of the worst health outcomes in South King County, particularly youth health outcomes. Those outcomes need more work and support, and more means that we recognize that we have a role to do more in that.”

“As for indoor space, we are looking at a 5,000-square-foot addition,” Berry said. “Another goal is to better use our outdoor campus, so we are building an outdoor day camp that has some outdoor structures and more things to really make the summer experience good for kids. We are also doing some things so we can economically expand our space, like doing covered outdoor spaces off the edges of our building. so we can afford to make more of our campus work.”

Berry expects to break ground on the project in about 18 months or two years.

“We are just starting our asking right now, and as of today we have $500,000 in. We will be doing our first major asks over the next three months,” Berry said.