SEQUIM – Elizabeth Salinas’ face lights up when you mention this Friday night.
She’s a music-thirsty 13-year-old who’s been known to hang out at the Boys & Girls Clubs, 400 W. Fir St. in Sequim.
And she’s preparing to check out that place’s next incarnation: The Club for teens.
Friday from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m., the Seattle radio station KUBE-FM 93.3 will broadcast live in the midst of the club’s grand opening.
And three bands – Jack Havoc and the American Scholars from Sequim and the Blakes from Seattle – will play and a DJ will supply the soundtrack for dancing.
Salinas, who is home schooled, can’t often go to Sequim Middle School dances.
So The Club, which will have music and dancing on weekend nights, is what she wants.
It’s also what other Sequim teenagers need, Salinas said, adding that many of her peers have too little to do with their free time.
“All they do is smoke pot,” she said. “After school they just go over to somebody’s house.”
As they prepared to expand their teen-centric activities, the Boys & Girls Clubs’ staff and board members conducted an online survey of teenagers last month.
Of 363 respondents, 57 percent called drug use one of the “biggest issues with Sequim teens,” with “boredom/lack of opportunities locally” and alcohol abuse listed as the other top concerns.
The Sequim City Council allocated $100,000 for the Boys & Girls Clubs teen center when it finalized its 2007 budget in December.
That gave the club the green light to hire Sarah Batson to run the teen activities along with a six-member support staff.
Beginning next week, The Club will host activities and serve meals to anyone age 13 to 18 between 6 and 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday and from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, said Cheryl Stough, the interim unit director at the Sequim Boys & Girls Clubs.
