The Teen Center is a huge part of the Boys & Girls Club of Portage County. The Teen Center offers a safe space for our teens and gives them a place to connect with other teens and learn new life and social skills.

This article from 2006 by Carlos Gieseken goes on to discuss the goal of The Teen Club and personal accounts of the positive impact The Teen Club has had on its members.

“The Teen Club of the Boys & Girls Club gives teens in ninth through 12th grades a place to hang out with their friends, listen to music, play pool and express their creativity. Many of the activities, including karaoke night, live bands, movie nights and fundraisers, are planned by the teens themselves.
“It’s kind of a small family in some ways,” said Sam Dinga, program. Director of the Stevens Point Boys & Girls Club and coordinator of the Teen Club. “For me, the greatest thing is seeing them here. They could go anywhere doing God knows what.”
Dinga is like everyone’s big brother at the club. The authority and respect the kids pay him is unquestionable, but it doesn’t stop them from trash-talking while playing against him in a game of pool or teasing him about the night’s selection in pizza.
“Here, no one tells them what to do. They just hang out with their peers,” he said. “But they know they are supervised. There’s no swearing. No bullying.”
Many of the teens have requested the club be open to them more than one night a week. Several members are forming a band and would like to use the space to practice.
“Most of the activities (teens suggest) cost money,” Dinga said. “The thing that prevents the club from getting bigger is the lack of money to fund the kid’s ideas.”
Jodi Jenkins, the mother of ninth-grader Austin Jenkins, appreciates the safe place the club provides her son on a Friday night.
“He’s supervised, but. He can leave and go to the library for a while if he wants,” she said. “He’s at something organized, and the staff seems very good.”
Ali Loethe, 16, says the club gives teens an option other than hanging out in the streets.
“Sometimes there’s no place to go in Stevens Point,” she said. “Everywhere else we go, like the mall or ShopKo, we get kicked out.”
“If we weren’t here, we’d be out on the streets doing something stupid,” said 14-year-old Ryan Buttera.
A feature of all the Boys & Girls Clubs in the county is the cooperation between staff members of different sites. It’s common to see a staff member from one site helping out at another site for a day.
Tom Collins, assistant program director at the Plover site, and Caitlin Young, a staff member at Plover, were on hand Friday night to hang out with teens.
“It’s so neat to see them turn around their lives. They’re so responsible now,” said Collins, a former staff member in Stevens Point, of watching longtime members like Buttera grow up.
“It’s been all his decision,” Collins said. “He used to run with a rough crowd. It was his decision to be smart and get a job.”
Last Friday, the club hosted a graffiti contest. Participants were given a theme and painted on a canvas, with the winner’s piece transferred to a larger canvas.
“We wanted to do. Something different,” said Sal Gonzalez, a volunteer with the club and organizer of the graffiti event. “It’s kind of an artsy town, so we wanted to bring that here.”
Teens entering the ninth grade are eligible to join the Teen Club, which doesn’t have a separate fee from the regular $10 annual Boys & Girls Club fee. “

After 16 years, the Teen Center continues to be a big part of the Boys & Girls Club community. Our hope is to continue being a safe space where teens can be themselves while learning to grow.