The soon-to-be teen center of the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Lynchburg is a blank canvas — being filled in with ideas from the students who will one day call it theirs.
The organization is expanding to a new location that is expected to open in the spring of 2027 and will be dedicated to students in high school and the workforce development resources they need.
Most of the middle schoolers who toured the empty building after school on Friday didn’t know what the term “workforce development” meant.
Yet, when asked what they were most excited for in the new space, students answered that they couldn’t wait to learn to cut hair in the salon area, cook in the kitchen and produce podcasts in the recording studio.
“Can I just say I’m 16 and come here tomorrow?” a Sandusky middle schooler asked through chuckles.
Boys and Girls Club staff want students to be involved in the brainstorming process as the new building is developed to preserve that excitement, said Stephanie Reed, the organization’s CEO. What the middle schoolers see as fun after-school activities now could turn into career paths later if they stick with the program as they get older.
The new building is designed to meet teens where they are, literally, across from E.C. Glass High School on Langhorne Road. The goal is to create a safe space where high schoolers can gather after school to learn from local employers and business leaders about career pathways in Lynchburg’s industries, Reed said.
The building was a medical office and is being renovated to include teaching spaces, various career-specific training areas like the podcast studio and salon station, and room to hang out and do homework. Students are weighing in on it all — down to the couches in the gathering space, which Friday’s tour group approved as comfy. Reed said she plans to invite teen artists to decorate the walls once construction is complete, too.
“I think that a lot of times, teens feel like they’re not heard, they’re ignored, their voice isn’t being acknowledged,” she said. “So I think giving them a space that they know is just for them, in an environment where we’re here to listen, and we want their input, that’s so important.”
The Boys and Girls Club used to serve students up to age 18 but recently reduced programming to the age of 14, Reed said, because so few high school students elected to stay in the program.
“High schoolers just don’t want to hang out with six-year-olds,” said Taylor Graham, the organization’s resource development coordinator. “That makes it really difficult to get teens in the door and have them stay. They want the feeling that they’re moving onto bigger and greater things and growing up.”
The new building is needed to welcome that group of students back to the program, Graham said.
“Their own space is important, where people know what they’re going through and the issues that they’re facing and also are really seeking to invest in them,” she said. “These are the future leaders of Lynchburg, so the center is a message that we want to invest in those leaders.”
Community dialogue often focuses on the challenges of Lynchburg City Schools, from chronic absenteeism to low SOL scores, Graham said. Progress in those areas relies on “the community getting together and saying, ‘Hey, this is a problem, but we can all step up to support our students outside of school.’”
In addition to providing workforce development resources and welcoming guest speakers to talk about careers in Lynchburg, the teen center will set time aside for students to develop life skills and get academic support as needed, Reed said. As teens express interest in careers that they learn about at the center, Boys and Girls Club staff can connect them with high school classes, local internships and apprenticeships, and certification programs that can get them closer to their post-graduation goals.
In the upcoming months, club staff will be recruiting high school students to join the program as construction progresses so there’s a cohort ready for opening day. Reed said the goal is to start with 50 teens in the program, and capacity, hours and programming could grow as everyone settles into the new space.
The club recently launched a $1.5 million capital campaign to cover the cost of the renovations. In the meantime, after-school programming for elementary and middle school students will continue as normal.
