New teen center gets glowing reviews MBNA-built facility offers games, food and companionship to students

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CAMDEN – The after-school clubhouse has come a long way.

In the Bowery Boys movie serials of the 1940s, the fictional young adults gathered in a dingy, subterranean, cluttered room furnished with cast-off chairs and couches as they plotted their latest prank or solved a crime.

The Bowery Boys would’ve thought they’d died and gone to heaven if they had the Camden Teen Center.

The new center, built for the town by credit-card lender MBNA this winter, opened March 5. The early reviews from 21st century teens are glowing, and it’s easy to see why.

Just around the corner from the former teen center, the new building is nothing short of impressive. From the wooden columns that grace its entrance, to its 5,300 square feet of floor space – and how that space is appointed – the building is top-notch.

About 2:15 p.m. on a recent Thursday, the doors swung open to admit about two dozen middle school kids. The teens tossed backpacks into cubbyholes and hung their coats in a room a few steps from the entrance, then dispersed.

For many, the first stop was the kitchen, grabbing sodas or juices from the refrigerator, then tearing into loaves of bread to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Next to the kitchen is a room called the Cafe, with four tables and upholstered chairs, a stereo system and big windows letting the late winter sun in. There are also 6-foot-high windows lining the wall the Cafe shares with the hall.

In fact, all the rooms have such windows, director Marcia Roberts pointed out, so that she and her three assistants can see most of the facility in a matter of seconds.

One of the staff members is always stationed in the kitchen. Despite the comfortable-looking chairs in the Cafe, the teens perched on stools in the kitchen and chat.

“This area is always packed,” said staff member Mary Claire Walsh. It is her job to enforce one of the center’s essential rules.

“Here, if they mess up, they clean up,” she said.

Amanda Leach, a 13-year-old from Camden, comes to the center most days, she said. She frequented the old teen center as well. She’ll stay until 4 or 5 p.m., when her mother picks her up.

On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays the center is open from 2 to 5 p.m.; on Tuesdays and Thursdays, it stays open until 8 p.m.

“It’s a good place to do your homework,” said Brian Rolerson, 12, of Camden. He comes to the center every day.

“It keeps me out of trouble,” said Jessie Hall, 14, of Camden. “And it keeps me from being a lazy bum at home.”

In a large room that looks like a lounge in a college dorm, a handful of teens sat in some of the 10 stuffed chairs, watching the giant screen TV. One young man asked if he could plug in his Playstation, and was told he could, as long as he doesn’t monopolize the TV for too long.

Harbor Audio Video donated a VCR and a video movie library of 20 titles, Roberts said.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the center, activity in the large game room was getting louder. A pair of boys played pool, two girls played air hockey, and some of the dozen arcade video games were fired up.

Roberts explained that the games run on tokens sold by the center. Only $2 worth of tokens can be bought a day, thereby discouraging teens from blowing their allowance on games.

Tokens are also earned by helping out around the center, such as cleaning windows, sweeping up or participating in a peer mentoring program.

“We have someone in the game room at all times,” she said. On Thursday, it was Adam Bullard, education coordinator at the center, who drew game-room duty.

Across the hall from the game room, the center’s study, with six Internet-ready computers, is empty. The Internet connections are not yet hooked up, Roberts explained, and more adult supervision is needed. The center is advertising to fill two part-time positions.

By 2:45 p.m., the center’s population more than doubled when a bus from Camden Hills Regional High School in Rockport arrived, and older students fanned out through the center. First-timers have to fill out membership forms with their home phone numbers and parent names. Once that work is completed, the teens merely sign in when they return the next day.

Some of the older kids moved to the TV lounge, where a pair played a foosball game and another pair played cards at the round table.

Tony Hartley, a 16-year-old sophomore from Camden, is another regular at the center. Tonight, he will stay until 8 p.m., then walk home.

As the center buzzed with the new arrivals, a high school-age boy turned on the stereo, playing a James Taylor CD. But the activity soon came to a halt when a girl, wearing torn jeans and sporting a stud in her lip, called a meeting in the lounge. Everyone gathered around, and she told them some people had been putting soda cans in the freezer, apparently to chill them for the walk home. The cans are sometimes forgotten, she continued, and they burst and make a mess. The girl asked everyone to stop this practice.

The teens nodded in agreement, and the meeting broke up quickly. Roberts hugged the girl, and praised her for her leadership.

Roberts has a lot of ideas for expanding the center’s services. She wants to plan parent and teen nights, for which teens might prepare a spaghetti dinner or hold father-daughter and mother-son pool tournaments.

The center’s bulletin board announces upcoming cooking and sewing classes.

The center also features a section that can seat 100. A dance class is scheduled for Mondays. Roberts said puppet shows, theater productions, addiction prevention classes and other activities are planned.

On Thursday, staff member Carol Coyle was setting up for a mask-making workshop she would run.

So far, the center has been drawing teens in strong numbers – on March 12, 117 teens checked in. Roberts expects a slight drop-off when the weather improves, but there are plans for opening in the summer – perhaps from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. After all, the center is air-conditioned and features a large deck overlooking the skate park.