Founded in 2004, the Wilton-based Trackside Teen Center is a nonprofit organization that serves as a location where teenagers can socialize and engage in fun activities in a safe, substance-free environment. Since joining Trackside Teen Center in 2019, Executive Director Lori Fields has worked to provide teens with a welcoming, relaxed environment that encourages creativity and helps boost their confidence through leadership roles.
Prior to Trackside, Fields had amassed more than 20 years”™ experience in social work and psychology, with experience at Jacobi Hospital in the Bronx in its psychiatric emergency room and later in private practice. During those years, Fields sought to understand “what prevents us from making the choices that we really want to make” and how we as individuals may “break patterns of sabotage or just patterns that we feel stuck in repeatedly.”
She concluded that this negative disposition has its roots in early adolescence.
“All of us in early adolescence begin to have a story of the ways in which we don”™t feel good enough,” Fields said. “It is a time of crisis, and so you are really struggling to figure out who you are with yourself, with your family and in the world and with your peers.”
Fields is joined by John Priest, a sixth-grade teacher at Middlebrook Middle School whom she described as the center”™s “programming rockstar.”
“He is such an incredible funnel and attraction for the middle school kids to come to the teen center after school,” Fields said. “It”™s amazing to partner with him.”
With the aid of Priest and others, Fields seeks to get to the root of the “story of not good enough,” as she described it, which many individuals grapple with well into adulthood. The pandemic made matters worse in this regard, stunting an already perilous journey into adulthood with the resulting shutdown of schools, which have always been important hubs for socialization.
Trackside, however, thrived and experienced major growth and changes during this time.
Now, with a membership model beginning at $50 for the entire academic year that includes specific afterschool programs along with measures to prevent the spread of Covid, Trackside”™s draw as an alternative hub for socialization became more evident to kids and parents. Even with the pandemic relatively restrained as of late, Fields considered Trackside as a good place for those who learn differently, contrasting it with many schools across the nation which she feels are stifling.
“School is great when you”™re a certain kind of person who learns a certain kind of way ”” and that”™s not great for everybody,” Fields said. “Kids who learn in alternate ways end up going through the school system feeling not good enough, feeling not smart enough.”
Fields continued to oversee the growth of the teen center by introducing programs and initiating new projects, such as converting the staff-only loft space to be a makers”™ space that serves as a workshop or artists”™ space.
“For the kids who might just want to come hang out after school, now they can go up to the loft and they can build stuff and they can invent stuff,” Fields said. “They could bring a project that maybe they”™re working on at home or just socialize up there.”
True to its slogan “For Teens, by Teens,” Trackside”™s young members conceptualize all its programs. High school members lead the programs, which helps develop their mentorship and leadership skills.
“Our culture at Trackside is one of setting the conditions to empower our kids to learn from each other,” Fields said. “Of course, it”™s overseen by adults, but it”™s so cool to just watch the kids learn how to run the place.”
Members are encouraged to initiate these programs, which result in programs that are in step with what many of them want to see, regardless of how idiosyncratic they may be.
“Our role is to help these kids dig inside themselves and give themselves permission to try the thing that they think might be this crazy thing and maybe no one”™s going to sign up,” Fields said. “What excites me is showing a kid that”™s where your magic is. All those weird ideas you think you have or those things you think are weird about yourself, that”™s actually your magic.”
Some clubs and activities that have emerged from this program model are the Dungeons & Dragons club, gamers day, the robotics club, ultimate frisbee, preplay/improv, chess and basketball.
Fields is planning to introduce programs that teach life skills and trade knowledge, such as learning how to work on a car or do plumbing. Fields hopes to also see a panel-like conversation called “Trackside Talks” featuring adults from the community who are experts in their respective fields or are passionate about a certain topic.
Fields”™ efforts have been met with enthusiastic approval and support from parents. Wilton resident Mike Handel, owner of the Stamford franchise of painting company 360° Painting, is one such parent ”” he has a daughter in Trackside and has been inspired by the center”™s mission.
“Since I became a 360º Painting owner, I”™ve wanted to be more involved with them ”” to help them with painting and any other way I could,” he said, adding that he provided support by reaching out to Benjamin Moore, which donated all of the paint used by his crew to paint the interior of Trackside.
“The last couple of years have been hard on all of us, and especially kids,” Handel said. “They need a place where they can go and feel like it”™s home, where they aren”™t judged and where they can grow and develop. I remember being in middle school and I remember it being tough.”
