Many people have longed for a safe place in DeKalb County where kids could hang out and have good, clean, healthy fun. Justin and Kendra Cantrell have made that dream a reality with the help of the court system, city and county governments, and the generosity of local folks.

On Saturday (May 31), “The Spot” officially unveiled its cool digs at the grand opening in the former Rotary Club building, across from the Smithville Golf Course and Swimming Pool.

“One day we drove by here and my husband said the Lord told him that this is going to be our building and within a couple days, it was,” Kendra Cantrell recalls. She and her husband Justin had helped with “The Spot” in Smith County, which opened in 2011.

“Justin and Kendra came to work there and have been working with me in Smith County with students there doing a lot of our after school programs,” explains Program Director Barbara Kannapel. After becoming certified in social/emotional learning curriculum and working with kids in Smith County for several years, the couple wanted to bring the idea back home.

“I saw the need in DeKalb County and just thought I’d tackle it,” Justin Cantrell said. “The community has been a big help. Everybody that I have encountered has been a big help with it. We just hope to see kids’ lives more stable, families more stable, and just have a safe place for kids to hang out and have a good time together.”

“I grew up in the foster care system myself,” adds Kendra Cantrell. “So, I've always had a passion to want to help kids. and we've prayed about it and talked about it for years now about having our own program here in DeKalb County.”

The couple first opened the doors for “The Spot” on April 30. Thirteen children came that first Wednesday, and the program has rapidly taken off.  

“Justin and Kendra are wonderful because they can relate to those kids in a way that a lot of us can't. So, they're seeing great results,” Kannapel says. “We have a program that we do for kids who have been through juvenile court. We work with them for about eight weeks and get them back on track hoping to prevent them from being adult offenders. We proposed a five-year plan to DeKalb County folks. That was two years ago, and we’re way ahead of the game on our five-year plan.”

The Cantrell’s have been working with kids in juvenile court and seeing great results. They’ve extended their teaching to kids in the school system in 5th grade and up with building healthy relationship skills, solid communication, and learning refusal skills to help in making wise choices.

The city of Smithville and the county donated the building which is open to 5th through 12th graders on Wednesday’s after school.

“Everything is free. So we'll be offering some camps this summer. We'll be offering some swimming and some summer activities. or they can just come and bring their friends and have a good time,” Kannapel says. “Justin and Kendra have worked really hard with the community to bring in game tables and video games, everything that's going to be fun for kids and have a safe place to bring their friends.”  

“They come and hang out,” Kendra adds. “It gives their parents a break, and it gives us time with them just to kind of pour into them and try to love on them and help them anyway we can.”

“I come from a broken home,” Justin said. “Both my parents were very young when they had me, and they struggled. They also had addiction, alcoholism, things like that in my family and if it wasn’t for sports, I probably would have been way worse off than I really was. But I think if I had a place like this, I could have found comfort and peace and more understanding than what was going on in my home life.”

The vision of The Spot is to see families with the assets they need to thrive as positive, contributing members of their schools and community.

“Our end goal is to see stronger families, have more family engagement,” Kannapel said. “We know that some of the kids that come to our programs, their parents have been incarcerated or have had some kind of brokenness in their families. We want to strengthen families for the next generation.”

“I'm just overjoyed,” Kendra said, as a large group of kids played in the background. “I told my husband today I think I literally prayed in my sleep last night. I'm just blown away with the people and the support we have.”

For more information about “The Spot” Youth Center call Kendra Cantrell at 931-854-6172.