It was Wednesday after school when I arrived at the Brookline Teen Center. As I walked inside, I passed skateboarders attempting to do tricks on the half-pipe outside. Free snacks made by local restaurants were being served at the front desk, rendering average high school cafeteria food inedible by comparison. This time, there were chicken tenders and chocolate chip cookies.
School had just ended, and rows of people were lined up running on treadmills in the gym, grouped around air hockey and foosball tables, playing Minecraft or participating in a fast-paced game of basketball in the gym. A class of kindergarteners was in the music studio. Toddlers are not normally found at the Teen Center, but they were there on a school field trip to learn drumming. I decided to jam with the kids for a bit on electric guitar. One of them held a mic and was just shouting into it with only occasional lyrics: “One, two, three, four!” or just, “No!” It was punk rock and fun.
This is what I know and love about the Teen Center, a place that welcomes you whether you’re in middle school or heading off to college, whether you’re looking for rigorous lessons in music or boxing or are just there to mess around with your friends. I was not there, however, to mess around. I was there to interview Director of Development Marisa Serrano because the federal government had cut funding for the Brookline Teen Center.
From what I learned through the interview, the Teen Center gets its funding primarily from donations and from renting its facilities out for events. Only five percent of its funding comes from membership fees, which are kept low to be economically equitable. During the pandemic, the Teen Center was unable to rent itself out for events and instead received supplementary funding from the town government through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), a federal COVID stimulus act that sent money to support local communities. The Teen Center was able to hire more staff, expand its program to include even more services and to start serving middle schoolers five days a week. This allowed it to support more members and have more impact in the community. ARPA funding, however, ended in January of this year. Without the town and federal government’s economic support, covering the Teen Center’s $90,000 monthly cost is more difficult.
As a community, I believe we need to support the Teen Center to offset this cost since our government no longer does. It provides many services and opportunities for socialization and extracurricular learning to Brookline youth. Of course, the Teen Center has a variety of available games and exercise equipment, but other equipment, such as their heat presses, laser cutters and 3D printers are also essential for those interested in STEM. I was able to use the music studio to learn how to mic up an amplifier and to practice with my friends before a performance at the high school’s Halloween Open Mic Night. These opportunities, which matter a lot to me as someone passionate about music and audio engineering, are not opportunities I would have found easily elsewhere. However, out of all the Teen Center’s vast offerings, its best offering remains the fact that it provides all of this affordably and conveniently to middle and high schoolers in a way that nowhere else in the town does. That is why we need to support the Brookline Teen Center.
How can you begin to support our Teen Center? One great way you can help is by encouraging people you know, such as your friends and family, to donate through their website. Joining, bringing friends, talking about it and putting up Brookline Teen Center flyers all help support the Teen Center and, in doing so, make Brookline more economically equitable for all. Even if you’re not a teen, the Teen Center still hosts adult events, such as the Adult Prom, which support it as well. Music studios and robotics labs aren’t things everyone in our community can afford access to. Supporting The Teen Center isn’t just about fighting to maintain a high-quality hangout spot—it’s also about fighting to broaden access to normally expensive services and educational opportunities in our community.