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Roughly one year ago, in May, nearly 200 youth poured into Redwood City’s Courthouse Square on a Friday night and began igniting fireworks, cutting off access to streets, sidewalks and businesses.
The event, which ended with two minors having been arrested, was the culmination of several disruptions that had taken place across the city, some specifically in downtown, by youth on bikes.
In response to the startling May event, the Redwood City Police Department spoke not only with downtown businesses affected but with the youth directly involved. They asked the youth what their experience was like living in the community, what motivated them to gather together on their bikes, and what they would be interested in doing instead.
Their discussions ranged from interest in job and internship opportunities, finding safer places for youth to hang out downtown and ways to access more mental health services.
Lt. Nick Perna of the Redwood City Police Department said conducting that outreach and doing additional research helped them identify needs the city’s youth weren’t having met and allowed them to build rapport with them.
After listening to what they had to say, a collaborative team made up of the Redwood City Police Department, the Police Activities League, now known as Pal Center, Redwood City Together, and later the Redwood City Public Library decided to try a new pilot program: the Action, Create and Engage (ACE) program for youth aged 12 to 24.
The program, funded by a variety of sources like the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative initiative, Sand Hill development company, the Sobrato Foundation and the Sequoia Health Care District, provides youth with after-school programs, bike events, entertainment activities, mentoring, as well as internship and job opportunities.
As the ACE program is set to hit its one-year mark in September, Derek Wolfgram, director of the Redwood City Public Library, said there are already plans to renew the program going forward, with some funders already expressing interest in continuing to support the program for a second year.
“We’re planning on going to the city council to extend the agreement and extend the program in August,” said Wolfgram.
Not only do they want to see more youth involved and the program expanded, but they also want to see more community organizations participate, too.
“There’s ways for everyone to be involved,” Martinez said. He encouraged churches, restaurants, and other organizations to join in. “We’re making the invitation for everyone to reach out.”
Wolfgram said a wrap-up report that gives an in-depth look at how the program’s pilot year went could be ready as soon as August. Program staff is aiming to include metrics on job and internship rates, youth attendance and participation in activities, as well as data that tracks vandalism and youth-related calls to the police.
Wolfram hopes to see a positive impact from the program in person and on paper.
“I think as youth have more opportunities to engage in productive, positive things that they’re excited about, that will naturally lead to a decline in some of the disruptive behaviors,” Wolfgram said.
Wolfgram stepped up to help with the ACE program when then Assistant City Manager Alex Khojikian needed to step away for other assignments.
“Since the library is so involved with youth work in the community, it made sense for me to take on that role for the city,” Wolfgram said.
So far, Wolfram said they’ve been able to provide job opportunities with places like Redwood City Together and Redwood City Parks and Recreation. Internship opportunities this year included restaurants like Cafecito and La Tartine, nonprofits like Live in Peace Bike Shop, and local government branches like the city council and the Redwood City Public Library.
For recreational activities, some police officers have been running a basketball group, while others focus on biking, which is extremely popular with youth. Organized bike rides, called “ride outs,” give youth the opportunity to simply bike from one place to another or use empty parking lots to do bike tricks out of harm’s way and away from pedestrians.
“That’s been one of the activities that’s been really popular,” said Wolfgram. “Since they’re so interested in bicycle culture, we’ve built activities that support that for them, just in a safer way.”
While youth can learn new skills like podcasting or how to write a cover letter, Ivan Reyes-Martinez, the executive director of the Pal Center and a founding member of the program, says youth are also being provided with a listening ear when they need it.
“These are all of our community’s kids,” Martinez said. “This is about a sense of belonging and providing more good choices to make.”
Tito Alvarez, the youth program coordinator at PAL Center, said this first cohort of youth has 40 participants for more structured things in coordination with Youth Empowerment, Entrepreneurship and Employment (YEEE!) like internship and job training, but other activities like bike rides are more drop-in style, open to any youth who want to come by and try an activity out.
For now, the program is mostly spread through “word of mouth.” Martinez said they developed a targeted approach to find youth to get involved with the program. They started with kids involved in the “bike life” movement and expanded from there.
“A lot of it has just been a word of mouth approach,” said Martinez. “It’s relationship based.”
Alvarez said he spoke with guidance counselors at Sequoia High School to help get connected with youth that could benefit the most from ACE’s programming. From there, he tapped into his own network to find folks that would not only be good mentors but would be able to connect personally with the youth.
In the future, Alvarez has goals of working with the entire Sequoia Union High School District, but for now, he’s keeping things on a smaller scale.
“I want to do this right, and if we’re going to do this right, we want to be able to empower these kids,” Alvarez said. “Having the number 40, it allows us to have four mentors who are able to work with 10 kids.”
Martinez echoed those sentiments by adding it was important for them to find good mentors already within the community to work with the youth.
“There’s more youth in the community who need these resources, who need to feel like they belong and who can have a place where they can create a vision for themselves,” Martinez said.
Martinez said that having mentors and positive role models in his life while he was going through high school made a huge difference for him, and he hopes today’s youth will get a similar experience through the ACE program.
“That’s the number one thing that I want: to make sure that those kids know that there’s a place that they can turn to, that they can call their second home,” Martinez said.
Alvarez said he hopes that the program will help youth figure out what success looks like and means to them and help them achieve it.
