Bored teenagers can get into mischief.
Rather than wring hands about kids with too much time and idle hands, there’s a plan in motion in Arlington to occupy the little dears.
They’re aiming high.
Hopes are to lease a building large enough to create both a family center and a teen dream — an indoor skateboard park.
The ball got rolling in May when Maddy Krygier of Marysville became executive director of Vision Quest Family Services to help foster teens and their families. She has been a foster mother for 20 years and shares her home with American Indian foster teens ages 14, 16 and 17.
Krygier has experience as a crisis mental health worker, case manager in a treatment foster program and a supervisor in a juvenile residential treatment program.
“I believe the most effective way to reach youth is to open your heart and show you care,” she said.
Vision Quest headquarters is at The Bookshelf at 102 E. Division St., Arlington. The used book shop in Arlington is managed by volunteer Jim Richards of Camano Island. He hopes to interest teens in reading.
“I try to tell them there is another world in books, right in your home,” Richards said. “Reading itself is a joy.”
Richards and Krygier share a small office at the store. It’s one of the drop-off points for the Vision Quest foster child gift drive that continues through Dec. 18.
It isn’t just to gather things for under the tree. They hope to keep some gifts in a closet. Krygier knows how kids feel on lonely birthdays. She would like keep presents on hand throughout the year.
Deliver goods for foster children and teens at The Bookshelf; Three Peas in a Pod, 314 N. Olympic Ave., Arlington; Windmill Espresso, 931 Stevens Ave., Sultan; or The Klothing Vault, 20308 77th Ave. NE, Suite B, Arlington.
For more information, call 360-474-9998 or e-mail visionquestyouth@aol.com.
In the spring, they hope to open the Vision Quest Teen & Family Community Center in Smokey Point. They have a lead on a warehouse.
“Vision Quest Family Services has been very blessed,” Krygier said. “We are still negotiating the lease and trying to secure funding.”
She knows it takes many hands to create a teen center.
“If we do it together, we are stronger,” she said.
But don’t foster families get plenty of state money to amuse teens?
She chuckled.
Krygier receives about $400 per month to provide for each youth, she said.
One of her boys wants to go snowboarding this winter, but there isn’t any money for that, Krygier said. She has enough trouble keeping him in skateboarding shoes that constantly wear out.
She said she hopes to make the teen haven fly with age-appropriate activities.
“If they think it’s corny and hokey, they won’t go,” she said.
Kristi O’Harran: oharran@heraldnet.com, 425-229-2451.
Help the cause
Vision Quest Family Services is collecting gifts through Dec. 18 for foster kids for both Christmas and birthdays. Deliver goods to The Bookshelf, 102 E. Division St. in Arlington; Three Peas in a Pod, 314 N. Olympic Ave., Arlington; Windmill Espresso, 931 Stevens Ave., Sultan; and The Klothing Vault, 20308 77th Ave. NE, Suite B, Arlington.
For more information, call 360-474-9998 or e-mail visionquestyouth@aol.com.
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