The SHACK: A Perfect In-Between
When Becky Anderson arrived to serve as a volunteer supervisor at The SHACK, her favorite moments of the afternoon would happen soon after.
She would hear the scrunch of tires on gravel, the bump-bump of car doors closing, the crescendoing peals of laughter. Then the door would fly open as students tumbled in, stories from their day zinging around the room like bouncy balls. They would greet her, hug her, find a snack and settle onto a comfy couch with friends.
“It was fun to see that liveliness, to see that this was a place they could feel like home, that they could feel safe, that they were glad to be here.”
The serious conversations might happen later — the young man with questions about faith, the young woman questioning her worth, the student looking ahead to life after high school. They might happen after Anderson poured her energy into playing Guitar Hero with the teens or while she was washing a few dishes at the sink.
They did happen because she was there, ready to listen.
“Teens need all the responsible, funny, playful, moral adults in their lives that they can get,” Anderson says. “Some of them find them in a classroom, some find them in a sports coach, some of them found them here.”
As an Adult Supervisor at The SHACK, Becky Anderson was glad to support its role as a vital “in-between” for youth who needed a safe space and safe people after school.
At the time, Anderson served as pastor of Greybull Presbyterian Church and Shell Community Church. She appreciated The SHACK’s vital role as a safe in-between for area youth.
She saw some teens come in the time between school and sports practice or a job, seeking a place to unwind or do homework. She saw students come because they were stressed and their friends and mentors were there. She saw them come because home was unsafe and they didn’t know where else to go or who else to turn to.
She didn’t exactly know where kids would be if they weren’t at The SHACK, although some did tell her — “hooking up,” “drinking,” “getting in trouble,” “getting beat up” — and because they told her she knew the truth of research that has shown the hours between 3-5 p.m. each week day are the most dangerous for youth.
Anderson wishes students would seek out a pastor, but they usually don’t. In that sense, The SHACK is a perfect in-between for students needing guidance or support but unwilling to seek it in the walls of a church.
She urges area churches to support The SHACK in its vital role reaching students where they are in order to help them get where they need to go.
“Where you can’t be, The SHACK can be,” Anderson says.
SHACK Executive Director David Bottom describes the youth center as a “zero-entry pool” into a life of faith. It is an accessible, non-intimidating place where the love of Christ is displayed daily and discussed when the timing is right and the student is ready.
No matter where a student has been or where he hopes to end up, The SHACK is a perfect in-between for the right now, a safe place to stay a while, to be who they really are, and to learn who they just might want to be someday.