EDGE Teen Center: A Place Where Teens Feel Safe, Valued, Accepted, and Empowered

EDGE Teen Center is more than a community center for teens. It’s a place where teens find the warmth and unconditional love that all teens need, but all too often lack. Feeling valued and accepted is, in fact, what puts teens on track to become successful adults.  With its caring, well-crafted after school program, as well as its community service program, EDGE does a great job of fulfilling its mission of empowering teens and making them feel safe, valued, and most of all, accepted, no matter what.

Teens experience a whirlwind of emotions, in particular a feeling of insecurity. Community service can go a long way toward making teens feel worthwhile; as can the consistency of an after school where they are understood and encouraged five out of seven days a week. EDGE nails it. There’s just something special that makes EDGE stand out from the crowd.

We put some questions to Sara Gabbard, executive director of our latest small grant recipient, EDGE Teen Center, to learn more about this work:

Kars4Kids: Can you tell us something about your community and the kids you serve? What’s your demographic? How old are the kids?

Sara Gabbard: EDGE Teen Center is located in the northern Cincinnati suburbs of West Chester and Liberty Township. We operate two after school programs and a community service/volunteerism program. EDGE exclusively services high school age youth. This school year has just begun but currently 64% of our teens are minorities and 65% are living at or below the poverty line.

Kars4Kids: How does your after school program work? Do the schools refer students? What do the kids do at EDGE, and what would you say distinguishes your center from other teen centers—what makes it special?

Sara Gabbard: We operate two after school programs. Both centers are open every day when the local school district is in session. The EDGE@East and EDGE@West Teen Centers are located within walking distance to the location of high schools and serve approximately 110 teenagers each day. EDGE is unique from other after school programs because we exclusively serve high school students. This allows us to offer programming specifically targeting “big kids.” While teens are with us, they can work on homework, play video games or play board games but each day we offer a special program or experience for them to opt into to prepare themselves for their future. These include free mental health counseling, meetings with post-secondary providers, financial literacy, or art therapy. What makes EDGE special are our staff and adult volunteers. They care deeply about our teens and are invested in their success.

Kars4Kids: It sounds like you have really caring people working with the teens. What do you look for in your after school staff? How do you know they’re right for EDGE?

Sara Gabbard: We have a small staff of six that operate our two after school centers and our community service program. We wouldn’t be able to service the amount of teens we see each day without our amazing volunteers. Most of our volunteers are college students and retired individuals. When we interview staff or screen volunteers we always want to leave the meeting thinking, “Gosh. I can’t wait for our teens to meet them.” We are always excited to find people who are curious, encouraging, warm, and understand that while the task may be working at the check-in desk, the goal is mentorship.

Kars4Kids: You have a community service program. Do the kids themselves volunteer on their own to help the community?

Sara Gabbard: Our community service program, EDGE@Work is designed to remove barriers to volunteerism for teens. We provide transportation to and from the volunteer site as well as a grownup to serve alongside teens. It can be scary going out to work at a non-profit for the first time. We try to remove some of those feelings by facilitating opportunities for teens to serve with friends when they go the first time. Many of our teens continue to volunteer on their own after their first experience. Our EDGE@East location has a cafe in00side of the teen center. This also allows teens to volunteer while gaining some practical work experience like running a register, providing customer service and basic food-handling skills.

Kars4Kids: What types of community service are available to choose from?

Sara Gabbard: We operate a Cafe at our EDGE@East Teen Center location that teens can choose to participate work in. In addition to this in-house opportunity, EDGE serves at a variety of local non-profits. A few of those are listed below.

• Hope House Mission: Teens prepare and serve a meal to the men experiencing homelessness that are housed at the shelter.
• Animal Adoption Foundation: Teens clean and organize supplies and then help to socialize the cats and kittens that are waiting for their forever homes.
• Hope’s Closet: Teens sort donations and help to merchandise clothing and accessories on the shopping floor for children in foster care to pick out items for themselves.
• Hamilton Urban Gardens (HUGS): Teens do basic gardening tasks that vary by season for this community garden space.
• MetroParks of Butler County: Teens pick up litter, help remove invasive plants and work on improvement projects at the local parks and nature spaces.

Kars4Kids: Your website speaks of empowerment. Can you talk about some of the ways you empower EDGE participants through your programs?

Sara Gabbard: Teens have a lot of say over what happens in our after school programs. The best example of this is our Sources of Strength Program. Sources of Strength is a suicide prevention program. It is completely peer-led with adult advisors. Peer leaders are selected by adults so that each friend group has an identified leader. It was wonderful being able to give a leadership opportunity to teens who sometimes aren’t picked for programs like this. Unlike other suicide prevention programs, Sources of Strength focuses on going upstream to help young people identify their strengths and assets so that they are less likely to be vulnerable to suicide. It has been amazing watching our teens lead games, self-discovery lessons and art opportunities in our teen center to help their peers see the good stuff and people in their lives.

Kars4Kids: Do you hold any special events during the year? We’d love to hear about them.

Sara Gabbard: We hold two fundraising events during the year that support our mission. Give Teens the EDGE is an annual celebration that takes place in October. The theme is different each year but it is a casual, gala-style event with live music, awards and fun. We also host the Shamrock Shuffle 5k and Block Party around St. Patrick’s Day each year. This year’s race is on March 15th.

Kars4Kids: The EDGE mission statement is that “EDGE is a safe place just for teens after school where all teens are valued and accepted.” How does EDGE make kids feel and be safe? What are some of the factors that would make a teen feel less than valued and accepted?

Sara Gabbard: EDGE’s mission statement is to empower teens to impact the world. The EDGE Teen Centers provide a space just for teens where all teens are valued and accepted. The world is hard right now for all of us. The teen years have always been challenging but are even more challenging with social media. What EDGE does is meet teens right where they are and care for them there. Many families are now spread out across the country. Many of our teens have found surrogate grandparents, aunts and uncles on our staff that serve as an extension of their family support system.

Kars4Kids: How long has EDGE been around? Do you have any participants who have come back to volunteer with you? Do you have a success story you can share with our readers?

Sara Gabbard: EDGE has been serving teens for the last 14 years. There is no better feeling than when our EDGE alumni come back to visit us. One of our teens from several years ago came back to work with us through the Americorps program. Lauren had found a safe space at EDGE as a teenager and while they were trying to figure out what their next career steps were, they reached out regarding our Americorps opening. After serving a year through Americorps, Lauren was hired on full time as the EDGE@East Site Manager. They have been on staff for the last 3 years. Now Lauren provides that safe space to teens that need it.

Kars4Kids: What’s next for EDGE Teen Center?

Sara Gabbard: EDGE is always looking for ways to serve work teens. We feel like we have a great model for positively impacting teens and hope to bring this model to more communities.