Youth center gives kids fun place to grow up

MARY LOCHNER

November 21, 2008 at 2:44PM AKST

Soon, Dillingham students looking for a safe social space after school could go to the Dillingham Christian Youth Center, to be located in the Old Head Start building, 439 Central Ave., within walking distance of Dillingham’s schools.

The center is the culmination of three years of planning and is set to open sometime in December or January. It will offer an after-school supervised recreation program on most school days where young people in grades six through 12 could play pool, pingpong, board games, Dance Revolution and Play Station 2. Or, they could get a workout using the center’s exercise equipment, donated by Bristol Bay Area Health Corp.’s Diabetes Prevention Lifestyle Change program, including elliptical machines, Bowflex, treadmills and other equipment. Youths get in for free, and the open recreation program will also provide healthful snacks such as fruits and vegetables.

Safe and Fear-Free Environment, which donated equipment for the center, will host its weekly youth programs there.

And the center will host Christian programs. One of these, a contemporary worship service on Saturdays, hopes to connect with young people by providing a space that relates to the social settings they enjoy.

“It’s more for the young at heart, with contemporary Christian music that’s more upbeat music of worship,” said Karen Erlacher, the coordinator for the new center. Her husband, Gray Erlacher, is spearheading the Saturday worship, called SEEK 707. The name refers to a passage in the Bible, Matthew 7:7, in which Jesus says, “Seek and you will find.”  

“It will have the coffee house type feel,” Karen Erlacher said. “We’ll have a brief sermon for hope and encouragement — what does the Bible say, how does it apply to your life — a short message. And time afterward for fellowship and to hang out.”

The center will also host other church programs, such as Celebrating Recovery.

Four Dillingham churches have labored on the effort for three years, getting an overhaul of the building, working with community organizations, providing volunteers from their congregations and selecting a coordinator to roll the whole thing out.

Pastors from the four churches — the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Anchor of Hope, Dillingham Bible Fellowship and the Moravian Church — serve as members on the center’s board, along with community members.

“They wanted to have a place for youths,” Erlacher said, “and the churches wanted to do more for the community as well.”

So far, the center has already received donations of money, exercise equipment from the BBAHC Diabetes Lifestyle Prevention program, equipment from SAFE and help from volunteers.

Now the project is looking for more community supporters, in the form of donors and volunteers. Erlacher is overseeing a drive to get a $10 monthly commitment from 200 community members to sustain the operating costs of the center, which are expected to run between $2,500 and $3,500. Volunteers are also needed — including handymen, cooks and assistant bookkeepers, people to help with cleaning and those who want to work directly with youths. Volunteers will be provided a half-day of training before working at the center.

The reason the Dillingham Christian Youth Center is reaching out to the community for support, Erlacher said, is because it wants to be sustainable. Although the center will apply for grants, it’s important not to be dependent on funding that has the potential to run dry each fiscal year, he said. To be sustainable, it needs ongoing support from locals, Erlacher said.

SAFE’s short-lived youth center, which opened this past August above the Dillingham Fire Hall, has since closed due to a lack of funding. The organization is now pooling its efforts with churches and others to help open the Dillingham Christian Youth Center.

Karen McCambly, the youth advocate for SAFE, has helped with the center, which will host SAFE’s youth programs, and helped get supplies from the old youth center above the Fire Hall donated to the new center.

It’s that community spirit that the center’s organizers hope will spread further. They’ve already had some committed monthly donors, Erlacher said. She hopes people will see the benefit that the center will bring and put their support behind it.

Ten dollars a month isn’t much for a single person, she said, but with just 200 people making that kind of commitment, the large majority of the center’s operating costs could be covered. Residents can even set up with Wells Fargo to have the amount automatically paid from their account, Erlacher said.

“We don’t want to let the youths down,” she said. “We want to be consistently open, and something the community can count on.”

In the future, the center’s organizers hope to add more organized activities for youths such as outdoor excursions including cross-country trips, gardening groups, and incorporation of Native traditional cultural activities. It also plans to apply for grants to make improvements to the building, such as fixing the roof. It would like to add an exercise program for adults. And, it would like to see the return of Dillingham’s monthly pancake breakfast, as a social and fundraiser.

“We hope to grow our programs,” Erlacher said.

The center is hosting a Thanksgiving potluck dinner at 6 p.m. on Nov. 25 at its location, the old Head Start building at 439 Central Ave. SAFE is donating turkeys, and locals are encouraged to bring a dish and check out the new center.

Mary Lochner can be reached at 907-348-2438, or 800-770-9830, ext. 438.