April 02, 2009, Palm Beach Post, Boynton facility strives to keep youth off streets, by Samantha Frank.

photo by Eliza Gutierrez/The Post

The Youth Empowerment Center in Boynton Beach might not look like much: a small classroom with several computers, board games, video games and a television. But for about 80 young people each week, it is a second home.

The center is the outcome of a study initiated by the Palm Beach County Criminal Justice Commission. The study found that most of the violent crime offenders in Palm Beach County were adolescents or young adults between the ages of 15 and 24.

Jevonte Walker, 12, a sixth-grader at Odyssey Middle School, tries to get a grip on his catch with the help of captain Bob Cawood, from Florida Fishing Academy, as Jordain Long, 11, a fifth-grader at Galaxy Elementary, looks on. Cawood leads the Hooked on Fishing, Not on Drugs fishing clinic for teens through the Youth Empowerment Center, which provides afterschool activities for teens in low-income areas.

With the support of the county commission, plans were made for five Youth Empowerment Centers in West Palm Beach, Riviera Beach, Lake Worth, Belle Glade and Boynton Beach.

Since then, all of the centers have been built except one in Belle Glade. They serve youth between the ages of 12 and 19 in surrounding low-income areas.

The Boynton Beach center first opened its doors in February 2008. Stacey Robinson, who runs the center along with the help of Vickie Henderson, first came on board in July 2007. Both women are full-time employees of Boynton Beach through the police department.

The programs at the center are always changing depending on what the teens want or need.

At first, Robinson said she planned academic tutoring programs. But she quickly learned that most of the teens coming to the center weren't attending school.

During the past year, Robinson said she has worked hard to get the teens back in school and has, for the most part, succeeded.

"That alone is pretty much an incredible thing," she said.

Today, Robinson and Henderson don't choose programs without the input of the teens. That's why they created a teen council, a select group of people who attend the center and help run it.

"They're influential in every way," Henderson said.

Every summer, the teen council members are invited on a mission trip, and in the winter, they go on a leadership retreat. The center pays for the trips.

The weekly classes currently offered are filmmaking, fishing, praise and liturgical dance, African drumming and employment skills. There also is a male mentoring group called Lamplighters that is always crowded.

"Sometimes we have to turn kids away from popular classes," Robinson said.

Other days, guests and speakers come in for special programs.

"The streets are exciting," Robinson said. "Our programs have to compete with that."

When there isn't a class or special program going on, the center becomes an open room, where the teens can explore what they choose.

Qua'tavious Miller, 15, and his 17-year-old brother, Romey, are members of the center's teen council and participate in many of the classes. Miller said he attends African drumming, employment skills and Lamplighters.

"I'm learning how to get a job," he said. "I want to work at Winn-Dixie or Publix soon."

Ladade Harley, 13, is the first one in the center each day. The sixth-grader at Congress Middle School said he always finds something to keep him busy at the center.

"I stay out of trouble here," said Harley, as he sat down to play a computer game. "Otherwise I probably would be out doing something I shouldn't."

Robinson and Henderson go above and beyond their duties, often picking up kids from school who don't have a ride to the center and taking them to doctor's appointments.

"They look up to us almost as if we are their second parents," Henderson said.

The teens also look up to Sgt. Gladys Cannon, a Boynton Beach police officer who works full-time as a liaison between the center, the schools, the police department and the community.

"(Cannon) is someone who's an enforcer but has the heart of a social worker," Robinson said.

The county agreed to financially support the Youth Empowerment Centers for three years, but come September, those three years will be up. So it remains to be seen if the county will renew its funding or if the city will pick up the slack.

Currently, the city doesn't give direct financial support to the center, but it does provide the center with space and a full-time police officer.

Robinson said she is worried that no one will step up to the plate before September.

"It's a Catch-22 situation because during recessional times, crime in general increases," she said.

The Youth Empowerment Center classroom in Boynton is on the second floor of the Carolyn Sims Center, 225 N.W. 12th Ave. Robinson can be reached at (561) 742-6643 .

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