Youth enjoy a game of Nine Square on Thursday night at the new Youth Center at Adventure Church in Yuba City. This new program is free and open to all middle school and high school students.

YUBA CITY, CA (MPG) - Just over a year ago, pastor Greg Mansur was announcing the opening of Adventure Church’s new location after a lengthy renovation process.

Back then, he and his team had alluded to their dream of incorporating a public youth center but the details of how that would work were still unclear. As community members grieved the loss of Nu Generation Lanes, a bowling alley in Yuba City that decided to close, the desire to bring the youth center to life intensified. The old bowling alley had become the new location for Adventure Church, a 13-year-old organization with an established reputation for being community-minded.

“From day one, we had determined that we were gonna do something to give back,” said Mansur. “We recognized the need and we’re part of this community and we wanted to be part of the solution.”

That solution was found in Tracy Mansur, Greg Mansur’s wife, who comes with an extensive background in both education and special education. With their youngest child now graduated from high school, Tracy was happy to start filling her “empty nest” with a new project.

A variety of gaming options are available at the new Youth Center at Adventure Church in Yuba City. This new program is free and open to all middle school and high school students.

“There’s a huge need for our youth in our community,” said Tracy Mansur. “Going to our youth group and being a part of the youth group at our church, I noticed that the kids just need a safe place, a supervised place to come.”

After Tracy Mansur quit her job with the county and built a team of well-vetted volunteers, the Mansurs were ready to open the Youth Center’s doors to the public. Their official start date was Sept. 3 and the center now follows the same academic calendar as Yuba City Unified School District. When school is in session, the center will be open from 3 to 6 p.m. Mondays through Fridays for sixth- through 12th-graders. During this time, youth can participate in a variety of activities such as ping-pong, pool, arcade games and a highly popular game, “Nine Square.”

“It's kind of like volleyball and foursquare,” Tracy Mansur said. “That’s the biggest thing here, the kids love it, it's very competitive and it's really been fun to play.”

Aside from free games and Wi-Fi, students can also receive free tutoring help on any type of homework from one of the dedicated volunteers. All volunteers are background checked and live scanned before being brought onto the program.

“We're really starting to see the students need that aspect of the youth center,” Tracy Mansur said. “But I also have a lot of kids that just want to hang out or they want to do their homework in a different space.”

As the Youth Center’s appointed director, she will continue to monitor the ebbs and flows of the center and look for new ways to engage the community and its youth. The Mansurs said they have been intentionally starting slow so that they can grow organically with the specific needs of their demographics. Future implementations might include classes in tech, finance and foreign languages. The couple is also gearing up to renovate the old bowling alley cafe located inside the church. Their goal is to open this space to the public and use it as a work training program for regional high schoolers.

“Our desire has always been as a church, to be a church that's outside the walls,” said Greg Mansur. “It's more than just having a nice building that gets used for three hours on a Sunday; we want to see this building used all the time.”

A variety of gaming options are available at the new Youth Center at Adventure Church in Yuba City. This new program is free and open to all middle school and high school students.

So far, Adventure Church has hosted a wide variety of events. Some of the most recent include the annual Lydia’s House Chili Cook-off, which raises funds for a women’s recovery home, and a Trunk or Treat Halloween event that brought in about 5,000 visitors.

“We filled up the worship center with inflatables and had a huge food truck court on the north side of the building. It was insane,” said Greg Mansur.

The Mansurs stressed that people do not need to be members of their church or believers to attend events or use their facility. Children who attend the Youth Center will not be “preached to;” it is a free resource to the community.

Adventure Church is located at 876 W Onstott Frontage Road, Yuba City. To learn more about the Youth Center and other programs that Adventure Church offers, visit acyc.family or call 530-822-9216. Tracy Mansur can also be reached at [email protected].