Permanent Home Opens Doors to Better Serving Community Youth
YouthZone is moving into a new building and a new era. YouthZone’s new logo is more current and reflects a level of support the deep level of involvement the organization has with area youth and their families.
“The new logo is current, professional and bold, but it is also meant to inspire trust and comfort. It reinforces that after 40 years, YouthZone is relevant, forward looking and will be around for a long time for communities’ youth and family,” said YouthZoneBoard of Director President Marci Pattillo.
The vision for the redesign was to give the organization a more modern feel to better convey the organization’s mission. The logo will help differentiate YouthZone from other youth-focused organizations in the area.
Executive Director Lori Mueller said that deeper support is what is showing up as a need for youth today. “YouthZone is really good at evaluating what the community needs. It takes a lot of energy over the years because kids and families change.”
When Mueller took over as Executive Director, she wanted to work toward a more narrow focus on how they could help the community. In the past, YouthZone referred their young clients to mental health and substance abuse facilities. Now their highly skilled staff uses their expertise to help in the first round of this engagement.
“YouthZone has evolved into a growing and progressive organization. We have continued to elevate the level of service to the communities in the Roaring Fork and Colorado River valleys,” Patillo said.
YouthZone’s new building on the corner of 9th and Blake in Glenwood Springs provides a more conducive setting to comprehensive and sometimes intensive services. The main floor of the old library was gutted to make room for two conference/workshop rooms, two family service rooms, and administration and staff offices. With the larger space, YouthZone will be able to offer more integrated services. Not all youth respond to intervention in the same way, so there will be expanded approaches with engagement through art and music therapy, yoga, meditation and life skills training.
For the last 30 years, YouthZone had leased a smaller building for one dollar a year from the Roaring Fork School District on 8th and School Street. When Glenwood Elementary needed to expand, a land swap with the city of Glenwood Springs left Youth Zone looking for a new home.
In the spring of 2018, YouthZone’s Board of Directors made an offer to the city of Glenwood to purchase the old Glenwood Springs library for $900,000. With the help of many generous donors, including $600,000 from Garfield County, YouthZone was able to reach their $1.7 million goal to pay for and renovate the new building.
The Glenwood Springs Rotary will lend a hand with the move to YouthZone’s permanent home on March 1. The move will start at 1 p.m. with a chain of supporters passing the key from the old School Street location to the new building on 9th and Grand. Plans are in the works for an April 11 grand opening.