PHOTO COURTESY OF ABE MOURACADE

Milton’s Paidion Youth Center held a fifth anniversary celebration April 25. The center partnered with the Rotary Club for a pool tournament, and pizza was donated by the Milton Tavern.

Paidion Youth Center celebrates five years

By Meghan Erkkinen

Milton’s Paidion Youth Center, a drop-in youth center along Milton Way where students in the Fife School District often go for a care-free, safe place, turned five years old this month. The center has for the past several years been a hangout for Fife School District students ages 12 to 19 who are seeking a place free of parental and peer pressures to go after school.

“We wanted to provide a safe place where kids would feel comfortable,” said Abe Mouracade, who was a chaplain with the Fife Police Department when he opened the center in 2003.

He opened the center because he was seeing some kids “fall through the cracks.” He wanted to provide them a safe, fun place, where they did not have to feel like they were assigned or they had to be there.

The center, located near Dave’s Restaurant, is open Tuesday, Thursday and Friday after school. Visiting students can play pool, ping pong or video games, watch movies, go on the Internet or just hang out. Mouracade and a group of rotating volunteers monitor the students and are willing to help them with homework or other needs.

According to Mouracade, he and about 18 rotating volunteers have helped students get jobs and get into community college and vocational school.

“We’re committed to do whatever we can to help keep the kids in school and help them successfully graduate,” he said. The volunteers at the center often act as mentors by working to build trust with the students and build relationships with them.

The big difference Mouracade sees between Paidion and other after-school programs is that the students at Paidion are there entirely by choice. Because he wants to make the students feel entirely comfortable at the center, parents are allowed for no more than 10 minutes to pick up their children – it’s a kids’ place, not a parents’ place, he asserted.

And the rules for students are simple – no drinking, drugs, smoking, violence or excessive PDA (that’s public displays of affection). But the students can wear what they want, watch what they want, listen to what they want and do what they want.

“We’re engaging in their culture,” he said. “What we have here is not for everybody, but it’s available to everybody.”

The students seem to appreciate the freedom.

“You can do almost anything,” said 13-year-old Brianna Smith, an eighth grader at Columbia Junior High School, who said she comes every day the center is open. “This place is the best place ever.”

Fifteen-year-old Will Rowley

likes the center because it allows him to “get away from the drama,” and because the rules are not too restrictive.

Milton Mayor Katrina Asay,

who supports the center through her role in the Rotary Club, said the center provides a safe place for students to go.

“I think it’s given a lot of kids some direction,” she said. “Some of them don’t have a stable home life. It gives them an alternative to gangs and negative associations.”

Paidion is supported almost entirely by private donations. It also receives some support from grants. The center also has received support from the school district, Fife Police Department and Milton Police Department.

In the future, Mouracade hopes to see Paidion’s volunteer base expand so that the center can be open more often. He also said he would like to explore the option of teaching English as a second language during the day for community members.

Paidion Youth Center is located at 1007 Milton Way and is open Tuesday and Thursday, 3-8 p.m., and Friday, 3-10 p.m.

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