Teen clubs?

[hlao23]

Have you even lived in a town that had a teen club that was sucessful? I'm talking about either dance clubs/coffee shops, whatever that are geared toward giving teens something to do besides drinking.

I'm doing focus groups with teens now and they all complain that there's not much to do. They tend to suggest clubs like that but the one's that were started in our town (20,000 pop)went out of business pretty quickly. I'm skeptical that these kinds of things work.

[KristaMB]

I don't have any personal experience with it, but when I lived in San Diego they had a very popular teen center, Epicentre. (http://www.epicentre.org/home.html) All I really know about it is that my neighbors loved going to concerts there and it seems to be doing well.

I understand your skepticism, as it's the only teen center I've ever heard of that is successful. The one here is really struggling for community support and has significantly cut back hours.

Editing to add that I think the concert venue link below is at the teen center, but that they are very different operations. http://www.epicentre.org/concerts/venue_info.html

[MrsReber]

I grew up in a shore town and there were a few successful teen clubs. I don't know if they're still around, though. The idea may have worn off. One popular thing was for local bar/restaurant places to have a teen night one night each week- usually a Friday or over a school holiday.

My little sister had this problem in NH. She joined a Christian youth group and things changed for her. I may not be into the religious teachings, but the kids got together to do some really nice things. Now that she's in college, she's still involved with a group and she loves it.

[HDgirl]

Our town has a Teen Center which has been around for about five years. They have a pool table and things like that. They also have bands playing on weekends and do a Battle of the Bands thing every so often. My kids went when a friend of theirs band was playing.

Our town is about 65,000 and we have two public HS and one private.

[jrichards]

We have a teen center called the "Neutral Zone". It's been around for years, and seems to be doing great. I don't know all the details, but I do know that they have movie nights, dances, a full recording studio, poetry slams, study sessions, a snack bar, fitness classes, artistic things, pool & ping pong, etc.

Here's the website:
http://www.neutral-zone.org/

Jennifer