Valerie Cassity
Special to the Sun

Kern Valley teens now have a place to go where they can be themselves. It is a safe haven to hang out, play games, talk about their feelings, or just do homework. The Every Teen Counts! (ETC!) center opened Monday, Feb. 7, on Wofford Heights Blvd., and welcomed 10 youngsters within its first hour of opening. And this came with only word-of-mouth advertising and fliers to promote it.

The concept of the center was brought to fruition by Julie Brueggeman, Program Director for Family Preservation Community Services (FPCS), a 501(C)(3) organization that provides coaching and “wrap around” services. The primary goal of the program is helping families that are experiencing difficulties remain intact.

Dana Smith, 13, keeps up with fitness games on an Xbox Kinect Feb. 11 at the ETC! in Wofford Heights.

While attending the Dec. 2 “Community in Crisis” meeting at Wallace Middle School, Brueggeman overheard students bitterly commenting that they felt like they weren’t being heard and wished that there was a place where they could go and just talk openly.

“With everything going on with the suicides, kids felt lost and like no one was listening, so we saw this as an opportunity to do something for the kids,” said Brueggeman.

She immediately set the wheels in motion to get such a place functioning ASAP, and just two months after she conceived of the Every Teen Counts! idea, the doors opened.

Located in the building that once housed a tattoo shop, walls have been repainted in varying shades of purple. Also new to the center are a brand new flat screen plasma TV, two computers with Wifi Internet access, a pool table, air hockey, an Xbox Kinect with fitness games, and older arcade games to keep the teens engaged.

A teen board of directors has decided everything from the colors on the walls to the games to the music, logo and T-shirt design. They have created a center they wanted. An English Bulldog named Wednesday, who greets everyone as they walk through the door, is the ETC! mascot. “We’re just here to supervise and guide,” said Brueggeman, “Where this goes is up to the kids.”

Primarily, the young people like a place to talk and be themselves without fear of judgment or ridicule. Teen Board president, 15-year-old Shasta Christensen, a freshman at Kern Valley High School, has been very involved with ETC! since the inception stage. She designed the logo and the T-shirts, helped create the name, and has been working on promoting the center to her fellow students. “I hope to see more people get involved and have it get bigger, but it’s a start,” she said of the grand opening.

The teen board has many ideas for the future of ETC!, including life skills workshops that include cooking and how to do laundry, computer classes, how to fill out job applications, and more. The group has also discussed adopting Wofford Heights Park, right down the street. Keeping the park clean on a regular basis, community service projects such as organizing fund raisers for the local animal shelter and adopting seniors are in the works as well. “We want to teach the kids to give back and pay it forward, not just take take take,” Brueggemann explained. Teens who take part in the projects will earn points to buy snacks at the center, she said.

Of course, with great opportunities come rules. Teens are required to obtain parental consent, and there is absolutely no smoking, drinking, drug use, or loitering. The center is geared for students from 13-18, no graduates allowed. And, most important to the teens, absolutely no bullies. “The point is they can talk about anything, scream, curse, yell, celebrate. That is what this place is all about,” Brueggeman said.

FPCS and ETC!, are funded by SB 163 money, which allowed the center to be opened more quickly than a center that relies upon community donations. ETC! is open from Monday-Friday, 3:00 – 7:00 p.m., and 10:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m. during school breaks. The center is staffed by Maria Holm, a paid Youth Partner, thus volunteer involvement is not a necessity to keep the doors open. Other than staffing and rent, which is being donated by landlord Ed Saling for the first four months of operation, Brueggeman says that the cost will be minimal and the benefits to our local teens great. She is also hopeful that the community efforts to establish another youth center in Lake Isabella will be successful, so that the two entities can work together and complement each others’ efforts.