A few years ago I lived here in Crescent City and I belonged to the teen center in a building at the fairgrounds. For a $5 one-time membership fee teens and tweens had a supervised environment where we could play foose ball or board games or just hang out with friends. I moved away and now I’m back, and saddened to find my favorite haunt has been closed due to lack of funding.
Parents and community members need to be aware that a bored teenager is an invitation for trouble. While there are activities such as movies and arcade games or bowling, these things require money. Maybe once a week parents can afford to send their kids to the movies, but on a daily basis, especially in this economy, it’s not practical or affordable.
Summer is coming and the kids of Crescent City are going to need some entertainment that doesn’t break their parents’ bank. If we are to keep our youth clean and sober and out of trouble, as a community we need to provide some kind of safe harbor and avenues of entertainment. Another teen center would be a good solution.
Kid’s need a place to go at night that doesn’t cost money. How many bored teenagers go to the beach or park and use drugs or drink for lack of somewhere else to go or something else to do? I can tell you it’s more than you imagine. Money may be a problem for the city to open a new teen center, but the cost of teens getting in trouble is much higher. The cost to the community when another member becomes addicted to drugs is a cost too high to calculate.
If the city or county or a private interest could provide a building I’m sure there are plenty of concerned parents and community members that would donate equipment and games and movies and even their time to supervise. One such program exists with a local church but is only one night week. We MUST do better for the young people of our community if they are to have a chance for a good life ahead instead of a life of addiction or jail.
who was the author of this article? I would like to use this on an annotated bibliography for my college course. Thank you in advance!
You have my permission to use this, however, I’ll have to research the author – it goes back to 2012.
Editor, Donna Westfall
Easy to keep kids busy and then they are out of trouble. Somewhere here in credentials city there’s an empty building that could service to keep kids safe. As a parent paying a fee and even if we as parents chipped in time and games furnished. movies ect., I’m sure we’d all like to keep our kids from getting into trouble. How about contacting me – let’s do fund raisers!
Trouble is easy to find around here. Without an outlet for teens to go, they become problems of the Del Norte law enforcement. We need to be more proactive not retro active with teens. Otherwise the continuous crowding of our local juvenile hall, and jails will continue to be a thing of the present not the past.
I agree! When I grew up in South Lake Tahoe, they had a recreation center that you could join just like the one you described but also had an indoor swimming pool. We need a new community center to keep kids from finding trouble…