fbpx
  • Subscribe & Support
  • Sign up for Free Newsletter
  • Print Edition
    • Get Home Delivery
    • Read ePaper Online
    • Newsstand Locations
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Contact
    • Advertise
    • Customer Support
    • Submit A News Tip
    • Where’s My Paper?
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Free HV1 Trial
Hudson Valley One
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s Happening
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Featured Events
      • Art
      • Books
      • Kids
      • Lifestyle & Wellness
      • Food & Drink
      • Music
      • Nature
      • Stage & Screen
  • Opinions
    • Letters
    • Columns
    • Editorials
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Help Wanted
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Podcast
  • Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s Happening
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Featured Events
      • Art
      • Books
      • Kids
      • Lifestyle & Wellness
      • Food & Drink
      • Music
      • Nature
      • Stage & Screen
  • Opinions
    • Letters
    • Columns
    • Editorials
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Help Wanted
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Podcast
  • Log In
No Result
View All Result
Hudson Valley One
No Result
View All Result

New Paltz Youth Center hosts free 30th Birthday Party

by Frances Marion Platt
August 9, 2019
in Community
0
New Paltz Youth Center hosts free 30th Birthday Party

The New Paltz Youth Program is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year and it has a big party scheduled for August 10. (Photo by Lauren Thomas)

The New Paltz Youth Program is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year and it has a big party scheduled for August 10. (Photo by Lauren Thomas)

On September 2, 1989, after several years of migrating among various locations, including the Middle School and the St. Joseph’s Church basement, the New Paltz Youth Program found a permanent home at 220 Main Street. That makes this summer the 30th anniversary for the current Youth Center, sometimes known as the Teen Seen. Program director Jim Tinger has been around for the last 25 of those years, and he has been busy since the school year ended organizing various ways of celebrating the community organization’s big milestone.

“We’ve been doing fundraisers, such as car washes, and having more trips over the summer than usual,” Tinger reports. “We’re having a bunch of different events to honor the 30th year. You know we sponsor an ongoing series of movies down at the Water Street Market, but this Monday, we’re showing The Simpsons Movie. It’s the 30th anniversary of The Simpsons this year as well, so we thought that was appropriate.”

That screening will be over by the time this issue hits the newsstands, but the big culminating event is yet to come: This Saturday, August 10 from 2 to 7 p.m., the New Paltz Youth Program 30th Birthday Party will take place at the Youth Center. “It’s free, and it’s open to everybody. Anybody can come,” says Tinger. Many former employees, interns and volunteers are expected to show up, as well as many former youths who have taken advantage of the Center’s program offerings over the decades.

Some of these special guests are expected to offer themselves up for a public drenching in a dunk tank, according to Tinger: “Certainly I’ll be there.” But what about the potential victims whom many people consider most heartily deserving of such soggy humiliation, local politicos? Tinger isn’t promising anything. “We’ll see if we can get Neil [Bettez, New Paltz town supervisor] to show up for that one. It’s kind of a hard sell.” Dignitaries dropping by to offer their congratulations to the organization would be well-advised to bring a towel, however.

Besides the dunking booth, attractions at the Birthday Party will include organized games for the whole family, a bounce house for little ones and music provided by a deejay going by the handle of DJ Jay Smooth, whose secret identity is Johnny Coxum. “He’s an officer on campus,” says Tinger. “He does a lot on the side.” There will also be a huge free barbecue, featuring “tons of food donated by local businesses.” Inside the Center, Tinger is hanging a gallery display of photo collages of program users, staff and volunteers going all the way back to 1994. Alumni should have fun finding pictures of themselves and people they knew in their teen and tween years.

One disappointment for Tinger is the fact that the new van that the Center has ordered for field trips, and paid for by a combination of developer fees to the town, donations and fundraising events over the past year or more, will not be ready in time to put on display at this event. The vehicle is not scheduled to be delivered until the end of August.

But that’s just a minor glitch, he notes. “Around 4:30 [p.m.] we’re going to have cake and a toast” – non-alcoholic, of course. “There will be a little ceremony… It should be a good party.”

Reflecting back on the Youth Program’s three-decade history, Tinger notes that program offerings have come a very long way, thanks in part to consistent support from the Town of New Paltz under many different administrations. “When I started, there wasn’t any educational component, there wasn’t any weekend program. So I started the tutoring and the GAMES program. Kids were getting in trouble because they were bored. We needed to offer programming on nights and weekends: the crucial times when they’re most at risk.”

Nowadays, the Youth Center supplies “more tutoring than any other school district in New York State,” with volunteer tutors – mostly interns and work/study students from SUNY New Paltz – participating in 60 classes a day at the Middle School during the spring semester, 30 to 40 in the fall. The long-running Saturday night GAMES program has been on hiatus since the Middle School renovation project began, but it will resume its 7-to-10 p.m. hours at Lenape Elementary School this September.

A “really successful” new program that was piloted at the High School last fall, called Cafeteria Alternative for Everyone (CAFE), will be back this September during the Monday, Wednesday and Friday lunch blocks. Geared toward students who aren’t comfortable with the “drama” that characterizes the regular cafeteria environment, CAFE offers casual drop-in spaces in the small gym and a former guidance office where high school students can play basketball, play games or musical instruments, get counseling, do homework or simply hang out. Tinger says that 50 to 75 students per day were taking advantage of the program during the parts of the 2018/19 school year that it was in operation. Now it’s official, with a contract signed between the Youth Program and the school district, and will be offered throughout the school year.

To learn more about the New Paltz Youth Program, call (845) 255-5140 or e-mail newpaltzyp@gmail.com. For more details on the Birthday Party, including updates on where to park (as of presstime, at the Middle School), visit www.facebook.com/events/new-paltz-youth-center/the-npyps-30th-birthday-party/393865441245688. To RSVP, visit www.eventbrite.com/e/the-npyps-30th-birthday-party-tickets-65187566767.

Before you click away... grab a free month of HV1. Get unlimited access. Get the news you've been missing. Get connected to your community. Keep local journalism alive at $5/mo., or cancel anytime. And enjoy summer!
- Geddy Sveikauskas, Publisher
Previous Post

Looking back with New Paltz Police Chief Joseph Snyder

Next Post

Saugerties curatorial extravaganza: Jen Dragon teams up with Jennifer Hicks

Frances Marion Platt

Frances Marion Platt has been a feature writer (and copyeditor) for Ulster Publishing since 1994, under both her own name and the nom de plume Zhemyna Jurate. Her reporting beats include Gardiner and Rosendale, the arts and a bit of local history. In 2011 she took up Syd M’s mantle as film reviewer for Alm@nac Weekly, and she hopes to return to doing more of that as HV1 recovers from the shock of COVID-19. A Queens native, Platt moved to New Paltz in 1971 to earn a BA in English and minor in Linguistics at SUNY. Her first writing/editing gig was with the Ulster County Artist magazine. In the 1980s she was assistant editor of The Independent Film and Video Monthly for five years, attended Heartwood Owner/Builder School, designed and built a timberframe house in Gardiner. Her son Evan Pallor was born in 1995. Alternating with her journalism career, she spent many years doing development work – mainly grantwriting – for a variety of not-for-profit organizations, including six years at Scenic Hudson. She currently lives in Kingston.

Related Posts

Goat Games: CAS joins 13 other sanctuaries across the country in virtual competition
Community

Goat Games: CAS joins 13 other sanctuaries across the country in virtual competition

August 17, 2022
40 artists turn out to celebrate Saugerties Artists’ Studio Tour 20th
Art & Music

40 artists turn out to celebrate Saugerties Artists’ Studio Tour 20th

August 17, 2022
Tommy Keegan, Jim Fawcett remembered at Kingston Artists’ Soapbox Derby
Community

Tommy Keegan, Jim Fawcett remembered at Kingston Artists’ Soapbox Derby

August 16, 2022
Summer reading challenge begins at Saugerties library
Community

Absentee ballots available for Saugerties Library budget vote

August 16, 2022
Growing connections one flower at a time
Celebrations

Growing connections one flower at a time

August 14, 2022
Speakers at public hearing split on New Paltz plan to end free Sunday parking
Community

Village parking plans include new mobile payment service

August 13, 2022
Next Post
Saugerties curatorial extravaganza: Jen Dragon teams up with Jennifer Hicks

Saugerties curatorial extravaganza: Jen Dragon teams up with Jennifer Hicks

Trending News

  • Sawyer Ice Cream is your grandfather’s shake shack 1.1k views
  • Phony crosswalk covered over 1k views
  • City of Kingston raises drought emergency to Stage II 899 views
  • Dutchess exec Molinaro challenges Ryan in special election for congress 810 views
  • Battery maker Zinc8 plans manufacturing at former IBM plant 555 views







Latest HV1 Podcast

Weather

Kingston
◉
72°
Cloudy
6:06 am7:53 pm EDT
Feels like: 72°F
Wind: 5mph N
Humidity: 65%
Pressure: 30.03"Hg
UV index: 3
ThuFriSat
86/59°F
90/63°F
88/63°F
Weather forecast Kingston, New York ▸

Ulster County COVID-19 Active Cases

Subscribe

Independent. Local. Substantive. Subscribe now.

  • Subscribe & Support
  • Sign up for Free Newsletter
  • Print Edition
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Contact
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Free HV1 Trial

© 2022 Ulster Publishing

No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s Happening
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Featured Events
      • Art
      • Books
      • Kids
      • Lifestyle & Wellness
      • Food & Drink
      • Music
      • Nature
      • Stage & Screen
  • Opinions
    • Letters
    • Columns
    • Editorials
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Help Wanted
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Podcast
  • Subscribe & Support
  • Contact Us
    • Customer Support
    • Advertise
    • Submit A News Tip
  • Print Edition
    • Read ePaper Online
    • Newsstand Locations
    • Where’s My Paper
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Log In
  • Free HV1 Trial

© 2022 Ulster Publishing