Enjoying pizza and some laughs are (from left) Thoreau Middle students Kelly Hsu, Kyra Sanders and Graham McCarthy. Photo by Bonnie Hobbs.
A place to hang out with friends after school, play sports and games, do arts and crafts and just have fun – that’s the Vienna Teen Center. Called Club Phoenix, it’s on the bottom floor of the Vienna Community Center, and it just celebrated its 15th anniversary.
“I’m so excited – it’s been 15 great years,” Town Mayor Laurie DiRocco told the teens at the celebration. “Ultimately, it’s a place for community and I hope you find that here.”
Vienna Parks and Recreation Director Cathy Salgado thanked Recreation Program Coordinator Brandy Wyatt for “changing the course of the Teen Center here in the past 12 years.” Wyatt was then given the Phoenix Award, a crystal trophy for her years of service and for improving the lives of local youths.
Marshall High senior Sydney Scafidi is the club’s Teen Council president and has been going to the Teen Center since elementary school. “I came for the summer camp and realized what a cool, down-to-earth place it was,” she said. “So I started coming during the school year, and now I volunteer here.”
She helps serve food and snacks and chats with the other teens. “I’m like the big sister,” said Scafidi. “I mentor them, give them advice, talk to them about life, ask them about their lives and pass along my wisdom. I really do love it here – everyone’s beyond kind. And I’m now working with the people who used to be my counselors.”
OUTSIDE, the teens play sports such as basketball; inside, they play board games or foosball, air hockey, pool or ping pong. “It’s where kids can come and discover who they are, in a safe place, and make lifelong friends,” said Scafidi. “There are always kids here and Fridays are pretty packed.”
She said it’s important to have somewhere “kids can meet other kids and feel comfortable. Adolescence is a touchy time and a lot can go wrong. Kids can get in trouble, but this helps them stay on the right track.”
Brian Hanifin is the Teen Center coordinator, Tammy Funk is the after-school coordinator, and Brian Harrington, Nick Jester and Jose Torres are teen supervisors/counselors – and Wyatt supervises them all.
Praising the staff, Scafidi said, “They’re all great people – a joy to be around. And it’s neat to think that the Teen Center’s been a pillar in the community for so long.”
Cutting slices of anniversary cake for the young patrons, Jester laughed and chatted easily with them. “I was in sixth grade when the Teen Center started, and I’ve worked here four years,” he said. “It’s a great place for the kids to play and make new friends from other schools and other grades.”
A counselor there for five years, Torres said there’s nothing else like this Teen Center. “It’s a safe harbor for the kids to come and not be judged by anybody,” he explained.
Wyatt began the after-school program 10 years ago “to give kids somewhere to go and something supervised to do after school,” she said. “We’re centrally located in the community, and the staff has created a comfortable atmosphere. The staff’s very relatable and the kids can be themselves here.”
She said Club Phoenix focuses on recreation, sports and physical activities. It also has a reading group with the local library and, each year, Fairfax County puts on an anti-smoking program for the teens. Regarding the anniversary, Wyatt said, “It feels good to know we’ve been open for 15 years, providing a free program for the youth of Vienna.”
In 1999, community leaders and parents raised awareness of the need for a teen center and then raised the money for it. “In 15 years, we’ve served over 22,000 youth – 19,000 from the Town of Vienna and 3,000 from greater Vienna and Oakton,” said Hanifin. “And we’ve run over 500 programs, including workshops geared to girls’ and boys’ problems, drug-and-alcohol prevention, anti-bullying workshops and parent discussion-groups to help parents deal with various teen issues.”
There six years, Funk plans the after-school activities and events. Monday-Thursday, the teens do homework the first half hour. Then they either make arts-and-crafts projects, play trivia challenges or do physical activities such as kickball, soccer, dodge ball or even their own game – Phoenix ball, which combines field hockey and ultimate Frisbee.
THE PROGRAMS are for grades six, seven and eight, aided by volunteers in seventh-12th grades. Sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders can stay Monday-Thursday, from 2:30-6:30 p.m., but only the two older grades can stay until 10 p.m. on Friday; sixth-graders leave at 6:30 p.m.
“But we usually have two special events a month, and one is a late night when the younger kids can stay, too,” said Funk. “We usually order pizza and play dodge ball, watch movies and just hang out and chill together. And it lets the sixth-graders feel like the older kids.”
As for Funk, she couldn’t be happier. “I love this place,” she said. “It’s always been my dream to work with kids in some way, helping them like a big sister. We give them advice and help them with their problems and their homework. We see them grow in maturity and we cry when we see them graduating from high school.”
Although middle school is a “hard age,” said Funk, “This is a place kids can call their own. And the Town supports us and our ideas. They never say something’s too silly, but, ‘OK, let’s make this happen.’” And with the center’s teen council encouraging youth to have a voice in the community, Club Phoenix’s slogan is “Rise up and make a difference.”
The center attracts 20-30 teens a day and, said Funk,
During the celebration, Vienna Elementary sixth-graders Sarah Motiff, Sarah Kazden and Ainona Black-Planas spent time together. At the teen center, said Sarah Motiff, “You get to hang out with your friends and do lots of activities. And the counselors are awesome.”
“You get to play games for fun and not be competitive,” added Sarah Kazden.
“It’s also a good opportunity because you do homework with your friends out of school,” said Ainona. “So then on the weekends, it’s already done. And it’s also just really fun to be here.”