It’s Saturday afternoon at the Change Center, and a handful of kids are skating in the reflection of floating electric blue stars. Others play arcade games or clamber up the climbing wall.
Twelve-year-old Caprice Young-Washington was dropped off here from Mechanicsville. She’s plunking down $5 for an afternoon of skating with friends.
“I come every Saturday,” she said. “It’s good service, it’s fun to skate and they’re friendly here, like family.”
But the Change Center is not just another roller rink. Open since December, it’s run mostly for and by teenagers in a neighborhood just east of downtown Knoxville where gangs are powerful and teens have few healthy, affordable places to hang out.
“It came together because young people told us that we need safe places to go and we need jobs,” Mayor Madeline Rogero said. It provides both, as well as job training, to neighborhood teens.
The city gave $600,000 of the $5.1 million cost of construction. Operated by an independent non-profit, the Change Center is designed to be self-sustaining.
The idea arose as Rogero, police and local leaders sought ways to change the culture of violence among black young men in the inner city. During the last couple of years, two-thirds of Knoxville killings involved black males, police records show.
“It evolved out of our Save Our Sons initiative, which I started here to engage the community around the issue that young men and boys of color -- particularly African American young men and boys in our community -- are disproportionately affected by violence, either as victims or as offenders,” Rogero said.
Killings within a roughly three-mile radius of the new center have increased by half since 2011.
Daryl Arnold, pastor at Overcoming Believers Church next door, had preached a lot of those funerals.
One day in 2016, he was walking across the unrenovated warehouse to preach another, shortly after talking with Rogero about where and how to build a skating rink for young people in the inner city.
“I really felt like I heard the Lord say: ‘If you’ll give up this property on this side of the wall, you won’t have to bury as many children on the other side of the wall,’” Arnold recalled. “So immediately after preaching that homegoing service, I called Mayor Rogero and said, ‘I think you need to come over here.’”
The church gave up the 22,000-square-foot space it had been renting out to help cover its mortgage. Construction took several years.
Although the Change Center has been operating just three months, the start has been promising. It’s open all day for community meetings and lunch at its cafe. Activities begin weekdays at 6 p.m., when after-school programs tend to close, and run most of the day and evening on weekends.
About 300 kids come to skate and hang out on Saturdays -- including suburban kids from as far west as Fountain City, says executive director Nicole Chandler.
“It’s beautiful to see those that are coming from west of Papermill (Drive) hang out with those that live east of Papermill and to see what could be a possibility of racial reconciliation,” said Arnold, who serves on the Change Center board of directors.
At the front desk, teens are likely to first encounter Zenobia Dobson, whose 15-year-old son Zaevion died in 2015 protecting two classmates from a hail of bullets. Outrage over his death and the shooting of his younger cousin Jajuan Latham fueled community will to fight gang violence and create the Change Center.
The police department, a partner from the beginning, has an officer at the Change Center any time it’s open -- not only for safety, but to build better relationships with the community and its youth. Men from Overcoming Believers Church volunteer to be “Change Center Fire Fighters” who spend time at the center on weekends teaching young men how to cool off when tensions simmer.
“If there is a confrontation, we don’t just throw the kid out and tell them you can’t come back,” Arnold said. “KPD doesn’t just lock them up. We put them in a room, have them talk it out, and 20-30 minutes they’re generally right back on the skating rink.”
But Chandler says the center’s biggest impact so far might be on its 27 teen employees. They work a six-month stint developing job skills from djing to cooking. After that, they are more prepared to apply for better-paying jobs with the 24 local business partners of the Change Center.
But Chandler, an Austin-East grad who grew up in the neighborhood, says many Change Center employees don’t want to leave.
“Teenagers who are saying this is helping us to see real change in our community and they want to be a part of it … to me that’s so powerful,” she said.
Dereke Upton hopes he can use his Change Center training from local DJ Sterling “Sterl the Pearl” Hinten, the voice of UT Vols Football, to get jobs DJ-ing parties and dances.
“I always liked music so I signed up to d.j.,” Upton said. “When I go up there, depending on the crowd, I can just play the type of music that they like and it turns out well.”
The Change Center has a recording studio where teens will eventually be able to record their own music, which will be played for skaters on the rink. Upton is interested, since he plays the djembe, a West African drum, with other friends from Austin-East High.
Central High senior Daveon Hall was helping kids find the right size skates on a recent Saturday at the Change Center. It’s his first job before heading to UT-Chattanooga in the fall to study political science and public law.
He said he’s learned professionalism and conflict resolution. But even more, he feels good about helping the neighborhood. He knows a lot of the kids, and what they’d be doing if they didn’t have a wholesome place that welcomed them.
“They either go on the streets and get in trouble, or either go downtown and do something that they aren’t supposed to do, and the Change Center just brings them in and keeps them from doing things that hurt their life,” Hall said.
Currently the center is holding a six-week boot camp for 46 kids, aged 14 to 21, who want to improve their chances of getting a good summer job. It will be followed by a job fair with 30 local employers, some of whom are helping teach sessions on employer expectations, personal branding, and more.
The center plans to expand its hours in the summer, hosting day camp field trips and financial literacy seminars, Chandler says. It’s also organizing roller hockey leagues with help from the Knoxville Ice Bears hockey team. The roller hockey equipment will be bought with a $10,000 grant, provided in March by the Zaevion Dobson Memorial Foundation.
A few weeks ago, Mayor Rogero and Pastor Arnold welcomed leaders from cities across Tennessee to tour the Change Center, which has become a model for other communities. Rogero stresses that it is only one step toward changing the culture of violence, and it will take time to see a visible impact.
But Arnold says he doesn’t need statistics.
“If I don’t have to bury as many bodies this year as I did last year, I think there is some measurement of success there,” he said. “I don’t know how to download that into a spreadsheet so I can put it on a grant proposal. But the reality is, I don’t care. If I do not have to stand in the house of another parent and try to find some scripture to make them feel better, I think that’s going to say some success.”
EDITOR'S NOTE: The original version of this story unintentionally switched Dereke Upton and Daveon Hall's names. That error has been corrected in this web edition.