Federal Way youth come together for first Teen Day | Slideshow
Published 3:50 pm Thursday, July 2, 2015
Over 160 teenagers and their families converged at the EX3 Ron Sandwith Teen Center for the first Federal Way Teen Day Celebration on Monday.
During the event, teens bonded over pizza, ice cream, cake, basketball, foosball, rock climbing and all sorts of other activities and refreshments. Teens were also informed of future programs and events at the center.
“This event is about getting teens in Federal Way to have fun, build community with each other, get to know each other and get to know services in the community,” Multi-Service Center’s Employment and Education Director Amanda Santo said.
Multiple organizations came together to help host the event — the first of its kind the Teen Center has ever hosted. Boys & Girls Clubs of King County, CHI Franciscan Health, Federal Way Community Center, Communities in Schools, King County Library System and the Multi-Service Center were all sponsors for the event.
CHI Franciscan Health donated a $500 grant to help pay for food. Other local businesses also joined in with donations, such as Thrive Chiropractic and Wellness, who donated hundreds of dollars, and Haggen and Trader Joe’s, who donated bottled water and some food for the event.
“It’s really important to invest in our community and you need to start with the kids,” Dr. Allison Scholes of Thrive Chiropractic and Wellness said. “Being kind of a new business in the community, it’s a way to give back and invest in our future.”
Michele McClaughlin, the teen services librarian at the Federal Way Library, played a big part in the creation of the Teen Day event. McClaughlin, Santo and Marianne Carreno from the Multi-Service Center bounced around multiple ideas that they could host for teens, such as an ice cream social.
They decided early on that neither the library nor the Multi-Service Center could have the events on their property and have the activities they knew would interest teens. They decided to contact Boys and Girls Club Director Mark Hendricks about using the EX3 Teen Center for the event.
“I’ve wanted to do something like this for a long time,” McClaughlin said. “When Marianne was able to make that contact with Mark [Hendricks] and he said we could have it here, that was the make-it moment. Otherwise, we weren’t sure who we could partner with where we could have these activities for teens.”
Louis Guiden Jr., who has lived in Federal Way for 16 years and has done youth outreach work for eight years, was another member who helped put the event together. He has worked throughout Tacoma and King County in various youth programs.
“This is a huge need in Federal Way,” Guiden Jr. said. “It’s a safe place for kids to come have fun, build relationships and that will help them engage in education and keep them from incarceration. I’m involved to really bring them some change, some hope and to point them in the right direction and away from criminal activities.”
Santo is hoping Teen Day will become a regular event in Federal Way. Currently, there are talks to have the event quarterly, including a back to school celebration within the coming months.
“Tukwila has a similar program where they do it every Friday,” Santo said. “Kids pay $2-$3 to have snack, have arts and crafts, play basketball. It’s kind of a late night event. I have a bigger vision where we have something like that. Maybe something bigger comes out of this and we can start doing something more regularly.”
More information
The Teen Center is located at 31453 28th Ave. S.. For information, visit positiveplace.org or call 253-681-6500.
