Whether the NEPA Youth Shelter’s Teen Center has a new home or not, director Maureen Maher-Gray is packing up.
“I mean, I’ve probably lost five pounds of sweat,” she said, surrounded by boxes on a hot summer day.
She has until September to move out of the expansive space on Wyoming Avenue in Scranton after Meals on Wheels NEPA decided to sell the building in May.
Maher-Gray said she and program assistant Janelle Johnson have looked at close to a dozen buildings since then, but none of them have worked out. Originally, they hoped to find a new space by August to get the after-school program ready in time for the new school year.
“We still have to be out of here by September 1, no matter what,” Maher-Gray said. “We’ve been talking about…an outdoor teen center until we can get inside.”
The NEPA Youth Shelter was renting 6,000 square feet of Meals on Wheels NEPA’s Wyoming Avenue building. The sprawling space includes a kitchen, art room, cafeteria, rooms of donated clothes and a recording studio.
Now, the contents of most of the rooms are packed, the recording studio computer is in a box wrapped in a fleece blanket, the rooms of donated clothes have been stripped and post-it notes label the furniture they plan to put in storage.
When Meals on Wheels announced their intent to sell the building in May, Maher-Gray asked the community for suggestions for a new space for the Teen Center.
“Lots of people have given us suggestions, but some of them just aren’t appropriate,” she said. “Location is going to be so, so important since all of our kids walk.”
Their budget has presented another issue. Maher-Gray said they can only afford $3,000 in monthly rent, and many property owners will not negotiate that amount.
Johnson said members of the community have reached out to her all summer asking to donate what they can. She’s asked them to hold onto any donations of clothes or other items, but she could always use water and snacks - especially when she plans to offer those items outside at the start of school.
“We need lots of water, and flavor packets because they usually put flavor packets in their water,” she said.
While Maher-Gray still sees a new space as an opportunity to expand the after-school program, she will miss the home she and the volunteers and students have created over the past seven years.
It hits her most when she looks at the walls of the art room.
“I just look at their handprints and I’m just like, oh God, this kid’s hand is like 10 times the size of mine,” she said. “So much of that is spontaneous, right? They’re just goofing around…but I love it that they felt comfortable enough that this was their space to secure their…legacy so to speak with their handprints.”
Bright bursts of painted flowers climb one corner wall in the art room. Maher-Gray wishes she could preserve at least that piece.
The flowers were painted by a student who came to the teen center in 2021. Maher-Gray said she started to paint the flowers, then stopped before she finished. Then, when her best friend passed away, she returned to it.
“She came in one day and said, ‘Miss Maureen, can I go paint?,” Maher-Gray recalled. “This was her catharsis…I’m going to miss this most of all because it’s an example of how we allow kids to be themselves, express themselves, and provide support.”
The handprints and artwork on the walls can’t move with them. But, one mural decorating the art room wall may offer hope for the future. It declares - what feels like the end is often the beginning.
Anyone with ideas for a new location can contact Maher-Gray at 570-892-1414.
