New Teen Center Director Aims to "Re-Culturize" to Support, Elevate Youth

The  (KTUB) has a new director with a penchant for youth empowerment.

“You’re older a lot longer than you’re younger. Our adolescence does define a lot of who we become,” says Paul Heric. 

Heric started as the director of the teen center about four months ago, after its somewhat rocky transition in management from the group Friends of Youth to the Bellevue YMCA. The YMCA now manages the 5,000 square foot facility through a contract with the , and Heric's passion for the organization and the teens it benefits is glaringly apparent.

He says teens want to elevated and supported. According to Heric, the center has had a less-than-stellar reputation in the past, with some in the community perceiving the building as merely a hangout for aimless youth.

KTUB, open since 2001 next to Peter Kirk Park in downtown Kirkland, is indeed a drop-in center where teens can go to shoot pool, play videos or use its tech lab with their peers. But Heric emphasizes how much more the center has to offer teens.

“I want to ‘re-culturize’ this place as a center of excellence,” he says.

Heric is hoping the fall programs and classes offered by KTUB will help change any negative image the center might have. The facility boasts a stage and concert venue, art room, photography darkroom, recording studio, computer lab and a café. The center hosts regular open jams, concerts and dances.

“KTUB isn’t just a drop-in center,” says Heric.

The art room is available on a drop-in basis, but also offers scheduled courses in silk screening. Teens can also enroll in photography classes, participate in audio-engineering internships and job training at the center's JW Café.

Membership to KTUB is free, but some programs do have a small fee, mostly for the cost of supplies.

Heric isn’t the only one with a zest for the center.

high school program student Devyn Whittle of Kirkland, 17, seems just as passionate about KTUB as Heric.

“I’ve been coming here since I was 13,” Whittle says. “I would even like to work here one day.”

Whittle has been an audio-engineering intern for the last two years and hopes through that experience she might one day be on the television show ‘Glee.’ She also was one of the teens who interviewed Heric when he applied for the director position.

“It has given me friends,” Whittle says of KTUB. “Everyone knows everyone.”

Beginning this fall, the center will partner with  students in a job training program through JW Café. The café will be open to the public, and interns will gain real-life job experience.

In November, the center will host an American Idol-esque battle of the bands entitled "One Song, One Chance." Participants will have 10 minutes to show their stuff and the winning act will score a professional studio recording session and two concert bookings.

“For a lot of teens, a lot of bad choices have been made for them,” says Heric. “This is a supportive, fun, inviting environment designed to create excellence.’