Anti School Shooting Advocacy Group starts feasibility study for a new after-school program in Traverse City

In 2024, Leelanau for teenagers (lift), a non -profit organization that offered programs after school, invested over 430 students and marched 128 volunteers to offer activities on more than 260 days of the year. Jay Berger wants to bring a similar model to Traverse City with the aim of endangering young people-and possibly even discontinuing the future tragedy.

Berger is one of the co -founders of Safer Kids, Safer Schools (SKSS), a task force that was introduced in 2022 to investigate what traverse city could do to prevent school shootings on site. SKSS was fueled by a seed grant of 15,000 US dollars by Rotary Charities and collected input from teachers, consultants, experts in mental health, applicants for children and other parishioners. The study led to a 60-page report, which was presented by SKSS last January and which recommended a local movement to “make TC known for how much it takes care of children”.

Now Berger believes that he has the idea of ​​how traverse city can do that. This week SKSS announced that it received a second Rotary-Seed scholarship for $ 10,000 “to explore the feasibility of the development of post-school programs for middle school students in the traverse City Area public school (TCAPS) system”.

“We try to get to the children who are not involved in other things,” explains Berger. “You are not in sports, you are not in band, you are not in the theater. They are the children who go home and then maybe bad things happen because they are not connected or committed. Or maybe they hang out with some other people who have no good influences on them. If you are a student in traverse city and are not involved in one of the other things in the standing management, there is nothing for you. We want to change that. “

According to Berger, the vision is to build Twin after-school programs at both the East and West Middle School through a public-private partnership between TCAPS and SKSS or a connected offshoot. Schools would offer the students space to gather, and SKSS volunteers would lead engagement activities that use this classroom as a home base.

If the concept sounds familiar, this is because it already has all four public schools in the Leelanau district.

Lift was introduced in 2017 on the back of less than 500 US dollars in Start -Up money and began because founders and managing director Rebekah Tenbrink found a need for joint investments in local adolescents outside of their classrooms and houses. In addition to a “clubhouse” room in the Friendship Community Center in Sutons Bay, Lift now has committed classrooms in the schools Sutons Bay, Northport and Glen Lake and found a presence at the Leland Public School. The programming includes a variety of leisure excursions such as nature hikes, painting ceramics and climbing days in ELEV8 in Traverse City – but also things such as homework and service learning.

Since Skss completed his initial engagement sessions in the community two years ago, Berger told him that people in Leelanau County and a similar model could thrive in Traverse City. Last summer he finally visited Suttons Bay.

“I immediately saw that this is such an obvious thing that we need in traverse city, and therefore something that SKSS needs to attract our attention” The ticker. “Programs like this help to build relationships and my slogan – not the SKSS slogan, but mine – is 'networked children don't shoot their schools'. We have to give our children the opportunity to connect positively, and I think this is the way to do this. “

While Berger Tenbrink and Lift Associate Director Audrey Luksch asked if they were willing to conduct the indictment to bring the elevator to Traverse City, he says that the couples in Leelanau are full. This means that SKSS has to build its own model, hence the feasibility study financed by the Rotary. This study, which is directed by the local consultant Megan Motil of parallel solutions, will collect the input from educators, students and community members in order to assess “requirements and demand, necessary resources and costs, governance and management, sources of financing and a potential schedule for the development and implementation of programs”. Motil's report is due to SKSS in June.

The costs, says Berger, will be the big question mark.

“Lift receives most of its financing from the municipality, and its budget is around 350,000 US dollars a year,” notes Berger. “The TCAPS superintendent John Vanwagoner really supports this idea, but he wants us to make sure that both middle schools have the same program, and he has informed us that Tcaps has no money to support the program. So it has to be financed in the community because we believe that it has to be free to be accessible and reach the children we want to reach. “

Lift was increased for his business last autumn when it was achieved by Impact100 Traverse City of 116,000 US dollars for the cycle 2024.

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of healing,” concludes Berger. “If we shoot a school, you cannot bring what has collapsed again. As soon as we have carried out this study, we would like to be able to return to the community and say: “The program will cost that much and we think it is a good investment. Can you join us to finance it? '”

Image: West Middle School