Call to order the community and culture meeting for Thursday, February 19th, 2026.

Let us stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Liberty Justice.

Welcome everyone to today's meeting.

We do have a hard stop at 355.

So hard stop at 35 for those who are gathered this afternoon here in the boardroom and also for those who are watching through our virtual means.

Today our conversations are the Frederick future Frederick Youth Center.

This item we presented by Chief of Staff to the Mayor Guy and Sampson and manager of Office of Opportunity and Transformation, Erica Robaugh Roarball.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Good afternoon, Mr.

Chair, members of the committee.

My name is Guy and Sam, the Chief of Staff to the Mayor.

And I'm Eric Karorba, the manager of Opportunity Transformation.

And we're here to do a presentation on the future of um our youth center here in Frederick.

So before we get started, uh I want to acknowledge the community partners and also people don't know this, Derek, or uh Councilmember Shackleford was a director of the youth center when I went there a long time ago when I was a little kid.

So uh the same building, uh right across the street, he was a director of our youth center.

I don't know what years those was, but it was a long time.

But anyways, I want to start by thanking uh members of our community and also uh the Australian Family Foundation and um Australia properties.

Uh they're sitting behind us.

They've been with us through this from the beginning.

So thank you all for being here.

We appreciate the invitation today to share updates about the future of the Frederick Youth Center.

This project is not only important to me as someone who is in the future of uh Frederick's youth, but also it's no secret, as I just mentioned.

I grew up here in Frederick and benefited from the types of services that we are looking to expand here today.

To orient us to this, this is the future of the youth center in yellow.

Um, which is directly across the street from McCurdy Field, which is in green.

Um I'll be remiss if I also did not thank Frederick County government.

Um, at this time in their partnership, they gifted us with the 18,000 square foot facility that we are working out of.

And so true partnership between governments and philanthropic communities um coming together to help the youth.

This journey started a long time ago in 2018 with the human needs assessment, the highlighted gaps in youth services from their little livable Frederick Master Plan in the city's community 2030 plan, set goals for social well-being and civic engagement.

Frederick needed a safe, accessible and space for young people.

That led to strong support for and collaboration in the idea of a youth center, built on collective impact model to serve our most valuable youth.

We started the community assessments in 2021 and 2022, followed by visioning and mobilizing efforts through 2024.

Right now, we're in the planning phase.

Site plans were just approved were approved just two weeks ago, and construction is on track to begin in September.

Is that right, Andrew?

This facility is expected to open in early 2028.

And I am thrilled to share some exciting news.

The city in partnership with the Alschman Family Foundation has secured $3 million through Federal Transportation Housing and Urban THUD Economic Development Initiative Program.

We'll talk a little bit more about that next week when um Alan and I give you all update about our federal um and state uh lobbying efforts and what we've done.

But we just want to make sure you all knew that we were very successful in that and we're happy with the partnership of getting that done into our members of the Maryland delegation, the U.S.

Congress, we thank them for this.

This work has been guided by community and youth voices from day one.

Three key recommendations came out of the process.

First, formalize a network, now launched as a 1224 collaborative, and Amy is here with us, and thank you for coming.

Second, create a youth council now it's in second year.

And third, opening a hub facility to act as home for this work, which is why we are here today.

So just to bring us back to the physical space of the building.

This is the um on the left, you'll see the um current boys and girls club of Frederick County.

On the right, that's the future home of the youth center, and then in the middle, that little sliver of land with like the pavilion, that's South End Park.

So all three of those facilities are city-owned property, and it's a bonus that McCurdy Field is directly across the street.

So you can really start to see this amazing youth campus that will be developed to help support our youngest citizens to our opportunity youth, which we'll talk a little bit more about in a second.

Um, this is an awesome.

Oh, first it's now the orientation is switched.

So this picture, the youth center is now on the left, and the boys and girls club is on the right.

But this is a concept plan that we worked with the Oshman Family Foundation to put together with our youth council, members of the community, to really get a great idea of what this campus could look like.

And a fun added bonus is there in the parking lot area.

You'll see some specific food truck parking.

This is a recommendation from our Frederick Youth to really pay homage to Scotty's bus, who is a local culinary legend, and what Scotty's bus lane was named after.