Saratoga News

Photograph by Edmund Lee

Workers install landscaping at the Warner Hutton House shortly after it was moved to its location on Fruitvale Avenue adjacent to Saratoga City Hall. The house serves as a teen center for Saratoga's young people.

Youth commissioners raise enough to keep center open

Councilmembers challenged teens to provide half of center's funding

By Sarah Lombardo

Chalk one up to the Saratoga Youth Commission.

After months of fundraising, the commission has succeeded in raising the money necessary to keep the Warner Hutton House Teen Center open for the 1997 half of the current school year.

Commissioners Brian Luskey, Jennifer Chang and Sarah Adolphson on Dec. 4 announced to the City Council that commissioners reached their goal of $8,450, half the amount needed to keep the house open for a full year. The commission had been asked by the City Council in July to raise the money when the council approved partial funding for the program.

The house was closed at the end of the 1994-95 school year because of budget constraints, but youth commissioners approached the city the next year with a proposal and petition to reopen the center. City officials agreed, but provided funding only for the first half of the school year, challenging the teens to work together to raise the rest of the money.

Now that they've met this goal, they aim to surpass it.

"We have decided [that], in order to better our services to teens in the Warner Hutton House, we would like to open up the attic of the house as a study center," Commissioner Sarah Adolphson said.

The teens said they were going to continue their fundraising efforts to raise money for the cost of architectural drawings, which Adolphson said was estimated at about $3,000.

According to Adolphson, the Saratoga Rotary Club has offered to help with the construction of the study area and local businesses have offered financial assistance.

In addition, Youth Commission adviser Beverly Tucker said the commission has planned a Youth Commission Night at Fresh Choice in the Westgate Mall on Dec. 17. During the next few weeks, teens will distribute coupons to residents that, when handed in at the purchase of their meal, would provide that a portion of their dinner cost is donated to the Warner Hutton House fund, Tucker explained.

For more information about fundraising efforts or to donate money, call Recreation Director Joan Pisani at 868-1250.