Los Alamos QUARANTEEN Center online space. Courtesy photo
TEEN CENTER NEWS
While the Los Alamos Teen Center, operated by The Family YMCA under a contract with Los Alamos County, is temporarily closed its staff members have created a new website and an online space where Teen Center staff and teen members can interact via text and voice.
Named, “Los Alamos QUARANTEEN Center,” the website can be reached at http://www.losalamosquaranteencenter.com and will allow youth to access a curated collection of web resources shared by their favorite Teen Center staff, other teens, and community members. Resources will include links to games, music, Ted Talks, cool videos, and community and educational resources.
The site also contains information about how teens can join the new “QuaranTeen Center” Discord server that houses the interactive, online space. Discord is an online platform created initially to provide better communication for online gamers, but it has grown into broad variety of vibrant online communities. For more information go to https://discordapp.com/company.
Teen Center Director George Marsden said, “A number of our most active teen members use Discord regularly for online gaming or to just chat with friends. They have been asking us for the last year to create a Teen Center Discord server as a better way to get information out to them about activities at the Teen Center.
“With the recent closure due to the current pandemic, we decided to give it a shot,” said Marsden. “Luckily our recording studio instructor Ryan Schultz is very familiar with setting up Discord servers. He got us up and running in a couple of days. We did a soft launch last week and have been constantly updating things based on feedback from the teens.”
On the Discord server, youth can access online gaming challenges, chat with their favorite Teen Center staff, attend virtual Teen Council Meetings, play in online Dungeons and Dragons games, and participate in virtual Teen Town Hall Meetings, among other things.
Teens joining the server will go through steps to verify that they are Teen Center members. Non-member teens who live in or attend school in Los Alamos County may also join, but the verification process will be more involved.
Teen Center staff will remotely host activities and interact with teens Monday-Saturday from 11 am-11 pm. The hours will may change over the coming weeks to accommodate the needs of participating teens as Los Alamos Public Schools roll out their remote education plans for the remainder of the school year.
For more information email latc@laymca.org.
ABOUT LOS ALAMOS TEEN CENTER: Los Alamos County has provided funding for this Center under an operating contract to The Family YMCA since 2011. In 2019, the Center served 1,450 youth including those entering 9th grade and the 2019 graduating class, which included 900 members and 500 program users. LATC averages 90 youth per day and serves 300 youth on peak days. Y staff engage with 20 community partners to host 19 youth events and 30 programs.
ABOUT THE Y: The Family YMCA was founded 65 years ago by community volunteers who recognized a need for a place where families could recreate together. In 2019, it served 7,700 people including 3,200 youth and teens, 3,800 adults and 700 seniors. The Y offered 90 youth programs and 50 adult programs. They provided 230 people (130 children and 100 adults) with financial assistance so that no one would be turned away for inability to pay, as well as partly supported the Española YMCA with donations that totaled $175,000.