After a long wait, the Santa Fe Teen Center had their grand opening in September, across the street from the Southside Library. 

While the popular and well funded center already had a small location inside the Santa Fe Place mall, many teens were excited to hear about the new larger location. 

The Teen Center is open to all teens. It offers a variety of activities, including a basketball gym, a computer lab, pool tables, ping pong tables, foosball, air hockey, a fitness gym with cable machines, Xboxes, Playsations, Nintendo Switches, Oculuses, and a snack kitchen. 

Along with the open activities for anyone, the center also offers scheduled activities, including  athletic tournaments on Wednesdays, cooking on Saturdays, and fitness classes on Fridays. 

The Teen Center hosts a wide variety of teens from 12 to 18. There is a big population of teens from the south part of town, due to its location, but the staff hopes to attract more in the next school year when they will offer vans to pick teens up from school. “We’re hoping to have more teens from across town next school year,” states staff member Sierra Vigil-Trujillo. 

Not only is the Teen Center a place for fun and recreational activities, but it’s also a great place to get school work done, with computer labs accessible to anyone. 

The Teen Center is open Tuesday and Thursday from 4 to 8 p.m., Wednesday and Friday from noon to 8 p.m., and Saturday from 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. (It is closed on Sundays and Mondays.) 

“The Teen Center is really an amazing place,” states SFHS sophomore Taylor Montoya. “It’s lots of fun and a nice place to hang out after a long day. I’m really looking forward to the new things they’re going to add next school year. You can tell they really put some nice effort into this place.”  

The Teen Center’s schedule can be accessed at this link.