FERGUSON, Mo. — Crowds gathered under an overcast sky Thursday, taking in a building that has the potential to brighten futures.
"It could change people's lives," 14-year-old David Littleton said.
With a $12.4 million price tag, the 27,000 square-foot Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater St. Louis Teen Center of Excellence is state-of-the-art and designed — in part — by the people who will use it most: the kids.
"We talked to a lot of young people before we set out to build the teen center, [asking] 'What is it you want, what is it you need?'" Dr. Flint Fowler, Executive Director of Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater St. Louis, said. "They said, 'We want a safe place where we can hang out.'"
Kahalia Adams, now a Boys and Girls Club teen ambassador, said she was drafted to give feedback about a new community center. She told them she needed a safe place. And then she waited, not knowing her dreams would come true.
"I'm excited to know that people care," Adams said.
The center's more than an after-school recreation space and a study hall. Fowler says they're also focusing on resources for job development, including a commercial kitchen.
"This is not just an outlet but an opportunity," Boys and Girls Clubs President and CEO Jim Clark said. "It's access to opportunities they otherwise wouldn't have. This is part of the future. It's certainly part of the Boys and Girls Clubs strategy."
Clark said the organization will use the Ferguson center as a model for others across the nation.
A senior in high school, Adams said this center could change the course of students' lives.
"I think the Boys and Girls Clubs really saved my life," she said.
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