Soon after the YMCA opened its doors in the spring of 2010, the Martha’s Vineyard Teen Center moved from its location at Cottagers’ Corner in Oak Bluffs to a temporary spot in the Y’s basement. Tony Lombardi, the Teen Center director, thought they were going to relocate there for a few years before moving on to a new location. Then the Alexandra Gagnon Foundation, who also funded Cottagers’ Corner, came up with a plan.

Downstairs is where teens can be teens. — Peter Simon

“They said ‘Look, we’ve come up with the funding for a new building, so as soon as we see the shovels in your hands and you’re ready to break ground, we will fund it,’” Mr. Lombardi said. “So we ran and looked for our shovels, found them, and started digging.”

With the help of numerous volunteers, the new Teen Center is nearing completion almost a year later, with plans to open in early November.

“This is a dream come true,” Mr. Lombardi said. “The Vineyard has been waiting for a place like this for a couple of decades to put down some roots for our Island children.”

Across the street from the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School and right in between the ice skating arena and the skateboard park, the Teen Center completes what he calls “the campus” for teenagers.

Jill Robie, the YMCA’s executive director and a mother whose children regularly attend the YMCA, said that having her kids grow up both on and off the Island, she noticed there are fewer places on the Vineyard for kids to congregate, whereas off-Island there are malls, bowling alleys, arcades and a variety of other entertainment choices.

Video games are more fun with a group. — Peter Simon

“So what the Y offers is a place for kids of lots of different backgrounds to feel welcome and feel like they belong,” Ms. Robie said.

With so many diverse backgrounds, the variety of passions and interests of teens is truly limitless. So rather than having adults pick out activities for the teens to enjoy, the Y offered focus groups during the winter for kids to come and brainstorm their own ideas for new programs.

“So the center is not really being created for them, it’s being created with them,” Mr. Lombardi said.

New activities at the Teen Center will include self-defense classes for women, yoga, meditation, and cooking classes with Island chefs. And in the newly refurbished basement teens can listen to, dance to, play and even record music of all kinds in “the Base,” a performing arts space and recording studio by day, and dance club by night.

“They need a place to be grounded and mentored, and that’s upstairs,” Mr. Lombardi said. “They also need a place to just be goofy kids, dance around and be with their friends.”

The Teen Center is also taking on a new challenge with the free-of-charge Digital Connectors class. With funding from Comcast, students ages 13 to 21 are given the opportunity to learn about the digital world and receive a certification in Internet Information Technology. This is a considerable convenience particularly for Island teens.

“These kids can’t just hop in the car and go to the local tech school and take a course,” Mr. Lombardi said. “If someone doesn’t provide it for them here, it just doesn’t exist.”

Along with the 156 hours of class time to complete the course, the teens must give back 56 hours of community service, which is a way to show their commitment to the class and the Teen Center in general.

“If it doesn’t matter on the inside to them, then they won’t respect it and they won’t care for it,” Mr. Lombardi said. “Whereas if you create a chance for them to invest, they will.”

Another new program at the center is HumaniTeen, where the teens do outreach locally, specifically to the elderly and physically challenged community.

With all the new programs and potential new teens, Ms. Robie hopes that a system can be set up for recording community service hours as a way of giving back to the YMCA since currently teens do not have to be members of the Y to enjoy the Teen Center.

“We want the kids to see this place as something valuable,” she said. “They need to participate somehow in getting that privilege.”

Ms. Robie said they are currently working out the costs of the Teen Center, with some programs being free, like homework assistance and Friday Feasts, and other specialized programs having a fee or membership cost, but nothing is set as of yet.

“We are trying to make it so that it’s not exclusive of anyone,” she said.

Whether it be through scholarships or more fund-raising, the directors want the center to be available to all.

“One thing I strive to do is to make sure that every young person that walks through the door knows that they matter to us and that we see them and hear them,” Mr. Lombardi added. “When I was young I didn’t have anywhere to really ground myself. I use that word a lot because I think that’s exactly what a teen center does, it gives you a place to land.”