Thursday, July 11, 2002

Tube or Tours?

The countywide Teen Council program gets kids out of the house and into the community.

By Kristin Davis
Points South Staff Writer

BROADWATER/MAXIMO--"Call me ‘Rambo’." Branden Sarno pulls a camouflage-green mask over his face and lifts his loaded gun to eye level. He sloshes through mud puddles. Checks his ammo. He’s ready. The air smells like garbage and wet cigarette butts. Soon, gun smoke will hang like dark clouds over the battlefield.

It’s Branden’s first paintball battle. He’s 12 and he’s excited. He’s spent the morning on a tour of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA). He and the others played fetch with Rusty, a 116-pound shaggy dog, tossed carrots into the Bunny Bungalow, and petted Charlie the Chicken. But paintball is what Branden’s been waiting for all day.

Branden is one of 20 kids who loaded into a custom van, police van and pickup truck at St. Petersburg Country Club just after 9 a.m. for a day of activities. It’s all part of Teen Council, in which community police officers, other adults and kids join up twice a week during summer vacation.

Summertime for kids can mean long days of idleness: television, sleeping until noon and video games. So Lakewood Community Officer Richard Grimberg decided to answer the resounding pleas from parents: "What can we do with the kids?" He started Teen Council three years ago. It brings kids from the floors of living rooms to action-packed paintball battles. It fosters a connection with community. It teaches kids that police officers do more than just arrest folks.

Grimberg joined forces with Broadwater/Maximo Community Officer Mike Schwenk after the first year. Schwenk had started his own council, but since they work together on everything else because their neighborhoods border each other, they decided to merge councils, too. What began as two programs for teens is now one. It combines kids ages 7 to 18, from all over Pinellas County. "He’s the brains behind the council," said Schwenk of Grimberg. "I’m the comedy routine."

Schwenk runs around the paintball field with the kids, his semi-automatic gun popping with everyone else’s. But he’s always their first target and the first one out of the game. He looks at the rented paintball gun with admiration and says he wants to own one.

The kids attend weekly neighborhood meetings during the school year. Schwenk says they learn good citizenship. They’re more likely than most to call in crimes, and their descriptions of suspects are as good as those of most cops because they know what to look for. The kids are also more likely to join their Neighborhood Crime Watch.

Right now Teen Council has around 50 members, but the numbers are steadily increasing. Members come from Maximo Moorings and Broadwater. From Lakewood and Palm Harbor. Cousins tell cousins. Friends tell neighbors. And from all around, they come.

A few of the program’s activities include plane rides, horseback riding, go-cart racing, a mock trial and boot camp. Kids experience things they wouldn’t without Teen Council. There is no fee for the council. Kids pay for part of the cost of their activities; the rest is paid for by Neighborhood Crime Watch funds.

The kids are as diverse as the activities. They come from low- to high-income families. Some are white; some are kids of color. Nearly all of them say they would be at home in front of the tube without Teen Council.

So many kids; so few ways to haul them. Betty Allen of the Lakewood Crime Watch volunteered her van, even though her children are grown. When one van wouldn’t start after the SPCA tour, Allen had to make two trips to get everyone to lunch. But they got there. Grimberg is asking churches to donate their vans for outings.

Stephanie Williams, 11, comes for nearly all of the activities. She is eager and extroverted. Her long braids fall over her shoulders, and she wears a pink flower-print top. She asks if they get "free kitties" at the SPCA and tells her audience she "almost died" on a waterslide at Adventure Island. Stephanie comes to Teen Council because she gets to go places most kids don’t.

Kelsey Conover, 13, like Branden, came for the paintball. But it’s raining and she didn’t bring the right shoes. After a tall, sturdy man in a red T-shirt with the words "Thunderbay Paintball" yells out rules like a drill-sergeant, she decides not to play.

For the kids, Teen Council is fun. For the officers, it’s a chance to educate kids while they’re having fun.

Sharon Houser of the SPCA carries Charlie the Chicken in her arms like a child, petting his dark feathers and red wattle. "Isn’t he sweet?" she coos. More forcefully, she tells the kids that animals are like children and should be treated kindly. She instructs them to call the 24-hour ambulance service if they ever see an animal hit by a car. "Otherwise, they will lie there and suffer." The kids pet Charlie--a good chicken, a good teacher. And he makes for a better show than what the kids could find at home on the tube.