Photo: Mayor Buddy, Commissioner Lynum, Superintendent Blocker, Magic COO Alex Martins and Robert Mellen, President Dr. Phillips Charities President, and teens at opening of new Teen Facility.
Mayor Buddy Dyer, Commissioner Lynum, Superintendent Blocker, Magic COO Alex Martins, and Dr. Phillips Charities President Robert Mellen officially opened the John H. Jackson Community Center Teen Facility on Wednesday.
Parramore residents now have a new Teen Room and Orlando Magic Reading and Learning Center at the City of Orlando’s John H. Jackson Community Center.
The newly refurbished facility is part of the Parramore Kidz Zone (PKZ) initiative, launched by Mayor Dyer, to address the need for older youth in Parramore to have safe, supervised spaces to spend time during out-of-school hours.
At the site, teens will now be able to access computers and the internet; work out with a professional trainer in the weight room; mix music using new sound and recording equipment; attend Teen Night Out events; hang out with their friends watching TV, playing cards and video games and benefit from one-on-one mentoring from the City’s Youth Prevention and Intervention Coordinator, the Boys & Girls Club’s Teen Program Coordinator, and Life Skills Coaches from Community Concept Services, Inc.
The site is also home to the “Drop Back In” to school program, which allows youth to take classes to obtain a high school diploma from an Orange County Public Schools.
Parramore Kidz Zone is modeled after Harlem Children’s Zone and was launched by Mayor Dyer in 2006 and employs creative outreach to engage a critical mass of Parramore’s children and link them to positive opportunities, including pre-kindergarten education, health care, mentoring, tutoring, and constructive activities when school is out. This past year, PKZ was pleased to announce across-the-board reductions in juvenile crime, teen pregnancy and school failure in the Parramore community over the past 3 years, since PKZ began.
For more information, please contact Heather Allebaugh, Public Information Officer at: 407-246-3423 or [email protected]
