Laura LaBarge, left, and Christielee Geiger explain the Tupper Teens program to members of the Tupper Lake Town Board on Thursday, Dec. 14. (Enterprise photo — Oliver Reil)

TUPPER LAKE — While the situation in small-town North Country may seem bleak for many teens and parents, efforts are underway in Tupper Lake to give a little hope. The town of Tupper Lake’s Recreation Director Laura LaBarge and Youth Activities Director Christielee Geiger are working to expand their Tupper Teens program, which seeks to provide a safe, constructive place for local teens to gather, socialize and create.

“This is stuff our town needs,” Geiger said, “So we’re going to make it happen.”

The Saranac Lake Youth Center and the Shipman Youth Center in Lake Placid make Tupper Lake the outlier of the Tri-Lakes as the only village without a place for teens.

The program was conceived in late October after several local parents reached out to Geiger. The department had many youth programs in place already, like the Ski Club, but parents noticed a lack of options for teens. When teens don’t have anywhere to go, when there are no creative outlets, trouble often ensues. This has been evident in the recent rise in vandalism at the Municipal Park.

Geiger ran some ideas past Tupper Lake Public Library Director Courtney Carey who, eager to jump in and help the kids, offered the library’s community room as a quick solution. A poll was sent out to kids and parents to assess the desires for such a program, which was met with enthusiasm. Carey and Geiger run the program together on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m.

The program relies on the support of volunteers, and though the local community is supportive, a lack of volunteers poses a major problem. Because of this, the program will be able to run only on Tuesdays for the month of January. With a full volunteer roster, the workload for each person would be minimal.

“If we could get 10 volunteers for three hours once a month, we would be fully booked,” Geiger said.

Right now, the bulk of the volunteers are from AmeriCorps, between the ages of 19 and 23, sent by the Wild Center. While these volunteers are effective at engaging with the teens, Geiger is noticing a void of volunteers who can also act as authority figures. Their ideal volunteer would be an older adult familiar with teens and unafraid to set and enforce boundaries. LaBarge and Geiger also plan to fully train volunteers in things like abuse awareness, Dignity for All Students Act training, sensitivity training and CPR certifications.

“I want to make sure we’re maintaining that level of care for these teens,” LaBarge said.

While the current setting in the library is functional, it is not necessarily sustainable. LaBarge and Geiger are working hard to evolve the program into a staffed teen center in the next five to 10 years.

“It’s an amazing program right now, but the kids need a space,” Geiger said.

According to Geiger, 61% of teen centers fail. In large part, the problem is often adults, she said. A lack of volunteers is one issue, but another less obvious problem is public optics; in other words, the way local adults view a place for teens to congregate. One obstacle is that a teen center might be viewed as a place for breeding mischief and trouble.

What the public doesn’t see, however, is the teens’ desire for structure and a comfortable place to express themselves. Geiger and LaBarge are already seeing this side of the teens currently attending the program.

“They’ve created their own rules for the space,” LaBarge said.

These rules are written by the teens under their “community norms” and include things like rules against bullying and ways to resolve conflict.

“It’s really heartwarming to see these kids come together and say, ‘this is my space, this is what I’d like to see happen here,'” Geiger said.

While a full-on teen center is years away, Geiger and LaBarge do have a stepping stone in place. The basement of the Aaron Maddox Hall, formerly home to the food pantry, will be the new space for the program until then. The basement has ample space, a full kitchen and privacy, and it will help achieve many program goals, like teaching kids life skills such as cooking, dishwashing, writing checks and doing laundry. But the basement needs a lot of work. LaBarge’s father Bill Cote, formerly of the Saranac Lake Police Department, is working on renovations.

“He’s our muscle,” Geiger said.

They hope to involve the teens with much of the painting, and donations of leftover paint are welcome. If the teens are the ones painting walls, floors and murals, then they can have a sense of pride and ownership over the space. This is beneficial not only for their confidence, but also for their behavior. If they were the ones to do all that work, they would be far less likely to damage it.

Geiger says that consistency is the most important tool for keeping both teens and the public engaged in the program. It will help teens trust the program, but also show the public that Tupper Teens is not only beneficial, but essential. Kids need a place to go that’s safe and allows them to be themselves. That can be a hard thing to find in the North Country.

“We’re breaking the cycle for everyone,” Geiger said.

LaBarge urged anyone wanting to help or offer donations of food, paint supplies or furniture to email them at tupperyouthcoordinator@gmail.com. The program needs chairs, a treadmill, an entertainment center and game tables, such as pool or air hockey tables.