After a long day at school, Mari Zimmerman and Lee’at Bachar, both 16 and high school juniors, used to hang out at Borders Books, Music and Café in Fox Point or went home to do homework and watch television. But last year they became bored with their post-school-day routine.
They weren’t bored for long, though. In March, they teamed up with Rabbi Moshe Rapoport, of Congregation Agudas Achim Chabad in Mequon, to help create a teen center for Jewish high school students in the North Shore.
“Everyone hangs out at Borders, but this will really be a haven for Jewish teens,” explained Zimmerman.
Rapoport, who had been concerned with the amount of students discontinuing their involvement with the Jewish community after reaching bar/bar mitzvah age, had “wanted to create something like this for a while,” he said. Plans started to form when Rapoport began discussions with high school students from his congregation about how they wanted to fill their free time.
The conclusion: “a place to hang out, relax, do their homework, and just be themselves,” said Rapoport. With students already up to their necks in homework, sports, and other activities, Rapoport, along with the students, decided that any kind of a Jewish program would be excessive, “rather what [students] really want is their space,” explained Rapoport.
And it was Rapoport’s intention to grant students this space. So from these discussions, the Jewish Teen Center was born. Rapoport’s goal was to make sure that students could “do the things that they enjoy in the location that we provide, ensuring a wholesome, positive and Jewish environment.”
Rapoport spent last spring scouting possible locations and sources of funding. After weeks of seeing facilities that were too small or too expensive, Rapoport finally decided on a two-story center for lease at 10050 Port Washington Road in Mequon. The facility was formerly used as a storage house of shoes for diabetics.
With permission from the city of Mequon, a signed lease, and a two-year grant of $25,000 from the Bader Foundation, construction of the Jewish Teen Center began in May.
The grant covers “the majority of the price of rent and the games,” said Rapoport, but donations from local Jews and other people from the community also helped to finance the project.
Volunteer students, like Zimmerman, from Homestead High School and Bachar, from Nicolet High School, joined fellow students and teenagers from Agudas Achim Chabad in designing the space, choosing and purchasing furniture and games, painting the walls, and cleaning the rooms.
The center, which officially opened the week of June 16, will be open every day after school for students to drop in and do as they please. The final product is furnished with leather couches and sofa chairs, a foosball table, an air hockey table, an X-Box video game system, a big-screen television, a full size pool table as well as a practical study area and a soda and water machine that was donated by Coca-Cola.
“We figured out what we liked to do”, explained Zimmerman, “and just put it in here.”
The recreational activities are all located on the first floor of the facility, the walls of which are decorated in brightly colored murals. A staircase leads to the second floor, which holds the study lounge as well as an office for the program director, Rapoport, who will provide adult supervision.
Zimmerman, Bachar, Lindsay Goldner and Rachel Kohlenberg will begin distributing flyers at the end of the summer to schools, synagogues, BBYO functions and mailboxes in the community. Announcements regarding the center will also be made at several Jewish youth functions.
The center initially will be aimed at the North Shore student communities, but Zimmerman hopes to “get the word out fast and have Jewish people from all over the city” come to the center, in due time.
The students are thrilled about the center’s progress and excited about its future. “It’s a very cool place,” Zimmerman continued, “that fulfills a common goal of Jewish kids hanging out with other Jewish kids.”
The coming school year will present a flood of activities. “We’re going to have a huge kickoff,” and the students eventually hope to work up to hosting “a Chanukah dance, a Purim party, and lots of speakers for Jewish teens,” Bachar said.
The new Jewish Teen Center will serve as an asset to many, Rapoport said. “A lot of people can benefit from this. Even me … my pool game is getting so much better by the day.”
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