Local teens thwart negative peer pressure

Help each other rise above

The Service Board, or tSB, located in West Seattle’s Youngstown Cultural Arts Center, has a motto, “Open the door for kids who want to change their lives.” The organization holds three sessions a year, and youth and teen mentors meet once or twice weekly to develop job skills, life skills, awareness of social justice, plan community service including beautifying Delridge and White Center, plan snowboarding trips, and “wrap it all up in food and love and building families,” said Ashley Miller, 26, tSB executive director. There is a second TSB facility at the Rainier Valley Cultural Center.

“Most in tSB over the years have returned in a leadership capacity, and are in the 14-to-28 year-old range,” said Miller. “I really think we’re a great example of a youth-lead organization. These kids have transformed since I’ve known them. Many were shy, so hard, tough nuts to crack. These kids have been through a lot and don’t open up easily. Once you get them to open up they’re just beautiful inside.”

“We have been based at the Youngstown Center since 2004,” said Matthew Therrien, 23, a volunteer coordinator who grew up in Hawaii. “I came out here two years ago from Wisconsin and knew no one,” he said. “What I love about tSB is that it’s really familial. When they’re asking how you’re doing they really mean it.”

“I lived in the Delridge area most of my life,” said Paris Randall, 18, a tSB “graduate” and now a mentor there. “The Youngstown Center, that’s my place. I want to be a professional recording artist. I did have some adversity growing up, definitely a lot of negative influences that formed me and how I fit in. Everything I was trying was not working for me. It was all the negatives, the lifestyle of the street. I found tSB and Youngstown. It was really my niche and I rolled with it.”

“When I joined tSB I was a freshman in high school,” recalled Irene Muller. “I had sort of a smooth entry into high school. But in the first couple of months I realized I didn’t like high school and quit. Then I found tSB and people who actually wanted to engage with me and engage me in my own life. So many teenagers just want to skim and just get through it. I’m going to be a senior next year. I was never really involved in school before, and now I’m the soccer captain. I’m in drama, choir, and this mentoring program. I think tSB mentors are open about what it was like for them when they had troubles.”

For more information go to: www.theserviceboard.org.