WESTBROOK – Mission Possible Teen Center in Westbrook has unveiled a new logo and a new name – My Place Teen Center.

“I’ve heard it from our kids all the time, ‘This is my place, my place to just be,’” said Donna Dwyer, executive director of the teen center. “One thing that stands out is that they want to be here and hang out with their friends. They want a place to feel safe, loved, cared for and cared about. We truly do.”

The teen center recently received a $5,000 grant to hire a public relations firm to help create the new brand and logo that focuses on the facility’s prominent feature – the bright red doors inviting teens to come see what’s inside.

“Throughout our last 15 years, we, as a community, achieved the goal of establishing a safe, after-school space with great programing for our teens,” Dwyer said in a press release about the event. “Moving forward, we needed a name and strong visual identity that made it clear to everyone who MPTC is and the fantastic future we have in front of us.”

The center’s new name retains the same initials.

“We choose My Place Teen Center in part because our teens often refer to the center as my place to chill, my place to be safe, my place to hang out with friends,” Dwyer said, “and it also helps set us apart from the other mission possible entities across the country with which we have no affiliation.”

Dwyer said everyone at the center mentions the red doors as a beacon, or “harbinger of hope,” and the kids know they are safe behind the brightly colored doors.

“It’s better than the old name. They wouldn’t get any donations and with a different name they’ll get more. My Place isn’t original. People won’t think it’s religious. That’ll help with money,” said Jordan Buck, 16, a teen at the center.

In the past few years, the center has struggled to make ends meet. Dwyer has said that she hoped the PR grant to hire Creative Content Partners in Portland will help market the brand better, reach more people and in the end, help the center get more donations.

Staff member Alexis Dearborn, 19, a former Mission Possible teen, said she likes the new name because it’s cool.

“I never said I was going to Mission Possible, I always said I was going to the teen center, or going to my place,” said Dearborn. “We’re just trying to get them [the teens] to understand. We’ve always said it’s there place.”

Dearborn said she also likes the new logo because it matches with the real red doors and it makes more sense, but many of the teens disagree.

Dwyer said the teens wanted the new name to be “My Place to Chill” but because “chill” is a trendy word, Dwyer and others decided to go instead with a name with more staying power. “My Place to Chill” will be the new tag line.

“The logo is too plain. I didn’t like the name at first but once I found out what it stood for, now I like it,” said Mason Mangarelli, 14, a teen who has been going to the center after school for the past four years.

The announcement on May 16 of the new look, which includes the logo featuring two bright red doors, was made at a special time for the center –exactly, to the minute, when the center opened 15 years ago, in 1998, in the Dana Warp Mill.

“We’re a teenager now,” said Dwyer.

Due to the lack of space, the center moved to its current location in the old church on Main Street in 2004.

The center is open to all teens ages 10-18 as an after-school drop-incenter that offers academic and life-skills programs, along with activities like a dance studio, craft area, cooking classes, pool tables and a computer center.

My Place Teen Center sees about 50 teens per day, or more than 500 youths per year from Westbrook and the greater Portland area, and serves an average of 14,000 meals annually operating on a budget of $200,000 supplemented mostly by donations.

“This ensures it is always their place and for the next 15 years it’s all about ensuring we make that happen,” Dwyer said. “It is our belief we will take care of our kids, we will make that happen.”

Donna Dwyer, executive director, stands next to the new My Place Teen Center logo during the unveiling May 16. Staff photo by Suzanne Hodgson