Skip to content

New youth centre opens with serious fun on Friday in Nakusp

About 60 young people found their way to the opening of the Nakusp and Area Youth Society’s new space.
DSCF5030
The Nakusp Youth Centre is now up and running.

Friday night in any town, anywhere, is the night that energy reaches some kind of peak level and so a social gathering is the thing to find. Nakusp is no different, and this last Friday night, about 60 young people found their way to the new youth centre at 212B Broadway (next to Cut-Rite Meats) for the opening of the Nakusp and Area Youth Society’s new space.

The foosball table and pool table were in use all night. There was a craft corner where people got to show off some of their card-making skills. At one point the pool table was completely surrounded by aspiring billiards pros, all cheering on their fellow players with each shot.

Some of the things we heard were “This is sick!” “This place is pretty awesome!” and “The lighting is perfect!” When hot chocolate and rice krispie squares hit the tables, all of the faces in the room went from happy to ecstatic. By all accounts, it was a wonderful first night.

This new centre welcomes young people aged 12-18, and is open for 10 hours per week to start. The schedule will be posted soon. The centre is our society’s three-month study to see if a youth centre is something that’s really needed here. At the end of those three months, we hope to have a good sense of what we should do next: continue, improve, or change direction.

The Green Door, Nakusp’s last youth centre, burned down tragically in March of 2006. Newcomers like us know very little about that incident, and never got to see what the building was like before the fire, but we’re honoured to be a part of building something out of the building’s legacy.

So where did all this new centre come from? In the spring of 2012, Michael Garvey and the crew of young leaders from PK Nakusp submitted an application to CBT for “Community Directed Youth Funds.” In doing all the work, they were successful in getting that grant for Nakusp.

About a year ago, our community started having its first meetings to try to determine how we would administer this grant from CBT ($25,000 per year for four years, total of $100,000). At the first community meeting, the young people and adults in attendance decided that the funding priorities should be, first, a coordinator, and second, programs.

The idea of having a “space” was on the priority list, but didn’t make the final cut. We decided to put $20,000 toward hiring a coordinator and $5,000 toward programs.

In November of 2012, board members of SAYOPS (Straight Arrow Youth Ops Society, the owners of the Green Door) began attending our meetings because they shared our mandate.

By December, the level of trust was so high that SAYOPS members elected a new board of directors: Sabina Iseli-Otto (Chair), Pat Dion (Vice-Chair), Jackie Phillipson (Treasurer), Dorothy Bekker (Secretary), Michael Garvey, Melody Nevoral, David Pederson, Craig Savage, and Kate Tupper England. Cassia Parent was hired as the organization’s Youth Coordinator. The new board inherited keys to the Green Door and a history that proved that anything is possible in a small town. In the spring of this year, we changed the name of SAYOPS to the Nakusp and Area Youth Society.

The path to getting this space secure, clean, and ready to be opened was a short sprint of 17 days. A lot of people who’ve heard about the youth centre have said, “Why didn’t I know about that?” Here’s why: because it happened so quickly. You might be able to imagine how much work it was to get it going: talk through the budget, plan like crazy, patch and paint the walls, move a counter and install a sink and fix the plumbing, find some ceiling fans, and talk to a bunch of people to make sure we’re not crazy (we’ve been assured that we are, but mostly in good ways). This whole project is almost as much of a surprise to us as it might be to you.

Because we’re moving so quickly, we really appreciate hearing your concerns about what we’re doing and how. We know we won’t think of everything and we’d love your help in filling in some of our gaps so that we’re not blindsided by what’s missing.

A lot of people are asking how they can help right now. We’re grateful for your patience while we sort out an orientation process to ensure our kids are safe and happy.

If you want to hear about what’s happening, we’ll have a website soon, (probably at www.nays.ca). Meanwhile, we’re posting to Facebook (find us as “Nakusp and Area Youth Society”), and we’ve also posted our approved meeting minutes and coordinator’s reports online at [http://arrowlakesyouth.tumblr.com/]. We’re accepting donations (please contact us and ask us for a monthly giving form if you like what we’re doing -- all our board members and Cassia are currently monthly donors), and we’re always up for conversations. The number at the new centre is 265-2000.

The most helpful thing you can do is talk to the young people in your life and ask them what they really want for their futures, what kinds of lives they want to have, and how you can help them get to the places they want to go. A bunch of us had those conversations with our young friends and now we have a youth centre.

We have many people to thank and insufficient room here to thank them all. For now, we hope this suffices: from the bottoms to the tops of our hearts, thank you, friends, for your time, donations, and goodwill.

Our organization values creativity, inclusivity, honesty, inspiration, generosity, and sharing knowledge. We want to help young people make life awesome for themselves, both here and now. To that end, our board’s Minister for Magic (yes we have one) is organizing a Hallowe’en party. Stay tuned.