Youth recreation center open for business

Grant Wiggs, 14, is used to getting off school, going home and taking a nap.

“Living in Maricopa, there just really isn’t a lot for kids to do,” he said. Wiggs isn’t alone in his assessment of Maricopa’s after school youth activities; 12-year-old Kalob Conrad said he often would be sitting around the house bored after school let out.

However, that changed for both of them on Feb. 15 when the Maricopa Youth Recreation Center opened. “There is lots of fun stuff to do here; you can never get bored,” Wiggs said. The center, with a capacity of nearly 200, is being operated by the Maricopa/Ak-Chin Community Alliance Against Substance Abuse and funded, in part, through a $60,000 donation from the city of Maricopa.

Initially, the center was scheduled to open its doors the first of January, but hiring staff and finalizing the leasing agreement during the holidays caused a delay in the opening.

“I think we got a little ahead of ourselves by thinking we could have the doors open the first part of January,” said Priscilla Behnke, CAASA program director. To help operate the center, two part-time employees were hired and a third is expected to join the staff shortly.

One of the first hires, 21-year-old Ashley Walker, said she believes the center is going to become a hot spot for Maricopa’s youth. “Right now, we are just trying to get the word out, but I am pretty excited about what is going to develop,” she said.

One idea lingering in the back of Walker’s mind is to start teaching the kid’s hip-hop dance. “I think they would really like it,” she said. The center is leasing space from Oasis Life Church, located at 19756 N. John Wayne Parkway, to host the teen center Monday through Friday from 2 to 7 p.m.

According to Behnke, one challenge that leasing space creates is that each Monday staffers have to arrive two hours early to move all the equipment — pool tables, televisions, foosball tables, popcorn maker, snow cone machines, computer, etc. — and then move it out again Friday night.

To facilitate the storage, Behnke said the owner of the plaza has agreed to let the group store the equipment in an empty office space adjacent to the Oasis Life Center. Behnke said the group would eventually like to find a permanent home.

In addition to the games and activities at the center, Behnke said in the near future the center would offer leadership classes and other character-building programs. “We really want the youth of the community to benefit from this center,” Behnke said.

The city is not the only group who stepped to the plate in an effort to help fund the non-profit organization. Pinal County Attorney James Walsh committed $15,000 through his office in October to help fund the organization’s proposed budget. “When I became county attorney more than 2 years ago, I sat down with (then) Maricopa Police Chief Patrick Melvin and talked about the importance of youth programs,” Walsh said. “It is much more cost effective to prevent crime by providing opportunities to young people.”

In its first week of operation, Behnke said she saw about 60 young people register for the center and a single-day high turnout of 35 kids. “We didn’t want to really start marketing the center until everything was in place, but now we are ready to go.”

Photo by Jim Williams