Teen center ramps up for school year

SANDPOINT — By tomorrow afternoon, the upstairs space on the corner of Pine & Division will become one of the busiest after-school destinations in town. That’s when the Sandpoint Teen Center opens its doors for the fall season, serving meals, solving problems and seeking to instill a sense of respect in the middle- and high-school students who walk through the doors.

Within the past year, attendance at the non-profit center has soared, from a couple hundred visits a month to almost 475 monthly visits, according to director Joan Avery.

“In other words, we served 2,919 meals last school year,” she said.

Chow is a big draw at the teen center, eating up about $4,000-a-year of the $30,000 annual budget for the center.

“A lot of our budget goes toward food,” said Dave Struckman, activities director. “We cook a lot and these kids can really eat.”

Popular staples such as macaroni and cheese, spaghetti, taco salad and nachos have been augmented by new favorites like “Joan’s potato enchiladas” and “Dave’s famous shepherd pie.” Increasingly, the center has turned toward healthy meal selections and required teens to pitch in and help in the fully outfitted kitchen.

“We insist on it,” Struckman said.

“And kids need to be needed,” Avery added.

The teen center, which operates with the aid of three minimum-wage staff members, now delays the meals by about an hour after opening. That way, the director explained, the kids don’t eat and run, they hang out.

“Our goal is to try and keep them here in order to keep them off the streets,” she said. “We’re trying to give them a safe, drug-free environment.”

With many of the students coming from one-parent households and with that parent often at work when they leave school, the center acts as a refuge — a place where the boundaries are real and the rules are enforced. Those parameters, Avery said, actually seem to appeal to teenagers.

“There are three rules here: Respect the building; respect the adults; and respect yourself,” she listed. “We have about 15-20 regulars who have been coming here for two or three years. They came in cussing and swearing and now they’re the ones who tell other kids, ‘You can’t do that here.’ ”

The second-floor room has its share of attractions, including foosball, Wii tournaments, air hockey and some wicked ping-pong competition, complements of Struckman’s expert tutoring of the game. Other activities include bowling instruction and team play at the bowling alley next door and basketball in the First Christian Church gym just up the block. Daily arts and crafts classes, including jewelry making, birdhouse building and working with clay, round out the activities.

A former Army paratrooper, Struckman also leads an abs workout class and Navy Seals Level I & II physical training sessions. He applies the same rigor to how the teens are expected to behave when they walk up the stairs on weekday afternoons. For accountability, they must sign in and out, so that there is a record of when they came and left.

“And all electronic devices are prohibited, because they’re so addicted to texting and all of that,” he said, adding that the center works to improve the kids’ communication skills through face-to-face conversation and interaction with staff and volunteers. “One of the biggest problems they have is that everything is about ‘me’ and the whole world revolves around yourself.”

Once their noses have been pried from the smartphone screen, the students are more prone to look out into the wider world around them, Avery noted.

“We’re trying to get these kids to think outside themselves,” she said.

As part of the outreach program, the center offers supervised community services such as leaf raking and firewood stacking in the fall and snow shoveling every winter. Residents who receive the help are not expected to pay, but many offer a donation to support the cause. The teens, who also have helped out by walking dogs at the animal shelter and making visits to retirement centers, can earn “bonus bucks” for their labors, which are cashed in for bowling or trips to Silverwood. This year, the center plans to add further incentives through a “bonus bucks store” stocked with gift certificates donated by local merchants.

The teen center is always looking for people who can use help around the yard or for things like basic chores, but a search also is on this year for those who can bring their talents and time to the table.

“That’s our big need right now — adult and young adult volunteers,” Avery said. “We’re looking for mentors who can come and share a skill or an interest they have or just sit and listen to the kids.”

Although the space is rented from the Seventh-day Adventist Church, there is no church affiliation or religious overtone at the center, the director pointed out. Still, the staff tackles all manner of teen-related issues, from helping the youngsters learn manners to educating them about bullying and, in severe cases, arranging interventions for kids in crisis.

“It’s never dull around here,” Struckman said. “We had a girl who came in and said, ‘I need somebody to talk to.’ As it turned out, I’m glad we were here for her — where else would she have gone?”

Most likely, according to Avery, she would have attempted to find help or solace on the streets. And even a small town like Sandpoint can have a problem in this regard.

“If you talk to the police, they’ll agree — we have a lot of kids on the streets,” she said. “There are too many of them — as young as 12 and 13 years old — out there late at night.”

At some point, she continued, a teen shelter could aid those who can’t or won’t go home at night. For now, the Sandpoint Teen Center is in place to help a larger audience from a broad mix of backgrounds. Support for the non-profit has come from large and small donors. Some hand over a few dollars to keep the doors open while others, such as the Ambrosiani-Pastore Foundation, have provided sizeable grants.

In the month before the center closed for this past summer, nearly 40 new names showed up on the sign-in list. Avery expects attendance to maintain its upward arc as this new school year gets under way.

“The word is getting around,” she said. “When I come upstairs and see 30 kids, all completely engaged in something, I say, ‘Yes!’ It’s my dream come true.

“We can’t control what happens in the rest of their lives, we can only control this environment and create a safe place for kids to be after school. Hopefully, what they learn here, they take out there.”

Sandpoint Teen Center hours, starting tomorrow, are 2:30-5 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday and 1:30-5 p.m. on Wednesdays. To volunteer, make donations or for more information, call (208) 263-0221 or visit: www.sandpointteencenter.com