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September 2, 2010
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The Rock a foundation for local kids
Published August 5, 2009
MONROE — Since it opened its doors last fall, The Rock Student Center in downtown Monroe has bloomed into one of the largest attractions to local youth.
Every Thursday, the faith-based adolescent hangout offers food, games and supervised leisure to scores of Monroe kids and director Howard Forman said the center was still going strong.
“The Rock is a safe place for students to come on Thursday and Friday evenings to play video games, billiards, line dancing and affordable snacks,” Forman said. “We very quickly grew and began having 80 to 95 teens on Thursday nights.”
Yet as attendance at The Rock has grown, Forman and his other organizers have seen the scope of the enterprise grow as well.
“While the Rock was opened for students to have a safe place to hang out, it became very apparent very quickly after opening that there were so many needs the teens had,” Forman said. “Some were hungry coming from homes where there was not enough food for different reasons, some needed clothes and many came from troubled homes. We learned that there were many different needs to be met.”
Over the past year, Forman has worked to help with as many of those needs as possible.
“St. Alban’s (Episcopal) Church received a grant and was able to offer free meals to students attending the Rock on Thursday nights during the past school year,” Forman said. “FISH of Walton County also has provided free snacks and sack lunches at night during the summer for students.”
The Rock also offers a variety of activities outside of the nightly fun and games.
“We have free guitar lessons on Thursday afternoons before The Rock opens,” Forman said. “The class has about nine students who are now playing songs on their guitars. We had someone from the music industry in Nashville, Tennessee, that heard about The Rock and donated guitars.
“We also had a local art business next door called Wild Child Arts that received grants for free pottery and art classes. We were able to send some of our students there for a free art class and free pottery class.”
Yet Forman said the most important lessons came from just the presence of responsible adult role models.
“The one thing we have learned is that consistency and integrity is very important to the roles we play at the Rock,” Forman said. “It is important for the students to see us as adults being consistent in every area of our lives and also for us to always have integrity. The students that come to the Rock want to see consistency and integrity in lives around them.”
While the number of programs offered is growing and new speakers share spiritual insights every Thursday, Forman said The Rock is still facing growing pains.
“One of the biggest challenges we have going forward in the future is the need for more volunteers,” Forman said. “We do not have enough volunteers to assist in the day-to-day operation of this wonderful program. The lack of volunteers is making it very difficult to predict the future of the student center and its wonderful programs. We need adults who have a desire to reach out to these young people, who have a hunger to assist these in need to grow and be exposed to a different way of living.”
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