KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Club KC is now in it’s second half of the summer.
The sound of shoes squeak on the hardwood gym floors in the Gregg/Klice Community Center Saturday and among those playing, 14-year-old Monasia Payton.
“I’ve been coming here for about a month,” Payton said.
But this isn’t the first time Fox 4 News has seen Payton. Rewind back to a Saturday in April. Fox 4 talked to her as she was walking on the plaza. So what’s brought her to the community center?
“The plaza, you got police and you got a curfew and stuff here you can be inside and stay until like 11 and just hang out,” Payton explained.
“Anytime you can give a kid a safe environment to come and be entertained it’s a good place to be a good safe place to be,” said Calvin Wainright, one of the project coordinators at the center.
The mayor’s office opened up Club KC at local community centers as an alternative for teens to stay out of trouble past the 9 p.m. summer curfew the city implemented in entertainment districts.
The mayor’s office said 7,700 teens have come out to Club KC events already versus the 7,000 total for all of last summer. But even though it is one of the city’s intentions to curb incidents at certain entertainment districts, Wainright said they are there for any teen who wants a safe place to have fun.
“A lot of focus was on the plaza but still there’s a whole lot of kids that are not tapped into and they still go to the plaza. So we really don’t take on the mindset of compensating for the plaza even though that might be one of their intentions,” Wainright said.
While most places that are a part of Club KC are still running, Fox 4 learned at least one was closed this weekend because the numbers have been weak The mayor’s office said kids were allowed to attend other nearby centers.
