MIDDLEBURG YOUTH CENTER

The mission of the Middleburg Area Youth Center is to provide an effective program that integrates and involves all the domains in which a young person lives: school, community centers, the neighborhood, and the broader community. The Middleburg Area youth Center seeks to make sure that existing youth programs, along with newly created programs are carefully woven together to respond to community needs, ensuring that youth have all the components they need to grow into healthy, functioning adults.

The mission of the Center is to ensure that all Middleburg-area youth will grow up to be healthy, caring and self-sufficient adults. The Middleburg Area Youth Center is a movement, not a program. The Middleburg Area Youth Center help the community to expand access to existing resources and programs to make sure young people have the basics necessary for them to grow into productive citizens – nurturing relationships with adults and positive relationships with peers, access to safe places for living, learning and working, access to resources that promote optimal physical and mental health, access to educational and economic opportunity and access to structured activities and opportunity for community service and civic participation.

The Middleburg Youth Center operates under several fundamental values. They view children, youth and their surrounding community as assets to be cultivated rather than problems to be solved. They collaborate with community leaders and citizens, young people, congregations, nonprofit organizations, foundations, businesses, youth-serving organizations, local government and educational institutions to develop the spirit of inclusion and partnership. In addition, they do not re-create programs that already exist but work to create programs that complement and advance existing youth programming and organizations.

Both youth and adults, creating innovative cross-generational partnerships, provide leadership and direction of the Middleburg Area Youth Center. It is a central community point during school and non-school hours where children can engage in structured and unstructured activities. It is also a place that will serve as a clearinghouse for parents and caregivers to learn about youth services at the Youth Center or in the area and participate in those programs. The Center is a place where teachers and others that work with and for children can come to allow continuation of care to meet the needs of children. The Center also mobilizes and supports community organizations and systems to launch and expand youth efforts through multi-sector collaboration.