KINGSLEY -- Diane Walton drove through Kingsley one afternoon during spring break and noticed all the young people hanging out on the streets.
"I thought, 'Wow, this is an accident waiting to happen,'" Walton said. "I knew then what they needed was a place to come after school, to work on homework and hang out with their friends."
The woman known by high school and middle school students in Kingsley as "the lunch lady" for managing their lunch accounts, shared her dream of a youth center with some friends at work and church. In 2007, they organized as a nonprofit, The ROCK of Kingsley Youth Center, and began looking for a location.
"These kids are our future leaders and some are going down a stony path right now," Walton said. "We need to provide them a firm foundation."
ROCK, she said, isn't a religious reference but an acronym. It stands for Raising Our Community's Kids.
On Saturday, Walton and volunteers of all ages spent the day painting and power-washing their new youth center, all 7,200 square feet of it. The all-volunteer group raised more than $150,000 in less than a year to purchase the former Kingsley fire station behind the village post office.
"I knew it was going to happen, we wanted it bad enough and we weren't going to stop until we got what we wanted for our kids," said Terry Street, Kingsley High School principal and vice president of ROCK. "But I was surprised it came together so fast."
Walton and Street both said they are gaining more support every day from the community as people realize the center is a reality.
Debryn Reamer, 14, whose dad is a member of the youth center board, said when she spoke about the center to her friends nobody really understood its significance.
"Now they get it," Debryn said. "Most of them are excited about it because now they just hang out at their homes and do nothing. This will be a good place to get out."
Walton said the center will be run entirely by volunteers. Their goal is to keep everything free and to pay for operations through fundraisers and donations.
The garage area that previously housed fire trucks will hold pool, air hockey, foosball and ping pong tables the group already purchased secondhand.
"For the last year and a half we've been looking in the newspaper, and when people find out what it's for they usually knock the price down," Walton said. "We have some really nice stuff."
One room will hold computers provided by Kingsley Public Schools, while the other has been designated as a video room. A third room will be made available to the community for meetings.
During the day when kids are in school, the youth center will double as a senior center to host congregate meals.
Area companies in the construction business donated a new roof, windows, paint and other supplies for the renovation. One private estate provided more than $32,000 in improvements. If the group reaches its goal of $100,000 for renovations, Walton said she hopes to have the center open by the end of summer.
"Every day brings a new challenge, but we also get more and more people calling to volunteer and donate," Walton said. "We're really excited; it's growing all the time."
For more information visit www.therockofkingsley.com.
