Imagine all the energy of a Cape Canaveral blastoff and 1,200 kids letting loose after school. Now add the explosive excitement of a ninth-inning game-winning home run.

You’re still a little short of the enthusiasm going into the rebirth of Roosevelt Island’s 26-year-old Youth Program, which has a new Director, a new Board, and more eager determination than a field of eight candidates for the Presidency of the United States.

For one thing, there’s Scot Bobo, the 13-year resident and father of two who says he "literally busted the doors down" to get into a meeting of the Youth Program’s Board. Now, he’s formed a new Board of Directors after setting a high bar: "I wanted parents who would say, ‘Yes, I definitely want to be part of this.’ The ones who are a little reluctant, concerned about the time – and it will take a lot of time – we’ll bring them in once we get our feet firmly on the ground."

For another, there’s Tina Gonzalez, who starts Monday as Director of the Program. She got to sing The Impossible Dream in a big high school event, "and it’s become the theme song of my life," she says. "Sometimes we feel that things are impossible – that the obstacles are too great. But I’ve experienced enough to know that you can’t say ‘no’ until you’ve tried it, and even then it might be just a temporary ‘no.’"

Tina herself – named Agustina after a French-Indian grandmother – is as diverse as Roosevelt Island. "Oh, I’m a mutt," she says. "Both my parents were born in Puerto Rico, but our family is... Well, I have German, French, Indian, and my great grandfather was a Spaniard, on my mother’s side." So she appreciates – no, absolutely adores – the diversity of Roosevelt Island. "Just walking down the street and going to the school and seeing the seniors, and the youth... It is what a community really should be. You have such a diverse community, and that should be celebrated every which way."

She intends to celebrate it through her role as replacement for Charlie de Fino, who left the Youth Center in January of 2006 after his twelve-year dream of a Youth Center expanding into 504 Main Street, the former Lilies Christian School space and, before that, an Island minischool, was quashed by the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (RIOC) Board of Directors, which wanted more documentation of Youth Center programs than de Fino wanted to supply. Both de Fino and Rivercross resident Steve Kaufman, then the Chair of the Youth Center Board, said the information had been supplied to RIOC Boards repeatedly. The impasse meant that $1.5 million in City funding has been returned.

[The space at 504 Main Street is now to become the new home of the Island’s Public Safety Department, according to RIOC President Steve Shane.]

But Kaufman is newly fired with enthusiasm, too. He’s staying on the Youth Program’s Board during a transition from a 16-month period in which he did what he could to fill in after de Fino’s departure. He’s the only holdover from the old Board. "All their kids grew up. Mine, too," he says. "We needed a new Board with parents of kids actively involved in the program, and every one of the new Board members does."

The involvement of those parents is seen as a key to the Youth Center’s future by both Tina Gonzalez and Scot Bobo. Says Bobo, "The level of parent involvement is a lot lower than it could be because I don’t think a lot of parents knew how to get in the door. Now, a top item on the agenda is how do we get more parents involved.

Youth Center’s future – and a piece of its past – Scot Bobo, left, is the Roosevelt Island Youth Program’s new Board Chair, recruited by its past Vice President and continuing Treasurer, Steve Kaufman, right. The new Board has hired Tina Gonzalez as Executive Director. She starts Monday. Kaufman is the sole holdover from the previous Board of Directors.

"There are new families on the Island. This was the biggest signup we’ve had for baseball in ten years, up from 60 to 80 for the minors, and in minor-league baseball we now have two groups. And a lot of people from off the Island are getting the word that our programs are good." Bobo feels it’s a good idea to have off-Island families involved. It just adds to the Island’s diversity, he says.

"When I moved here 13 years ago, there was a lot more action at the Youth Center," Bobo said this week when he sat down for a chat with The WIRE. "The facility was more full than it is now. There were Scout sleepovers, more music programs – a lot more going on.

"Everybody on the Island is touched by the Youth Center, whether they know it or not. There’s Roosevelt Island Day, and the Halloween parade and party. All the people on this Island are part of this program, but we need to get the word out." Bobo says his own ten-year-old son discovered the Youth Center about a year ago and loved the big-screen TV, the computers, and the friends. "He started hanging out there, which was fine, because we knew where he was." But as the program "dwindled" without a full-time executive director, Bobo’s son drifted away. Bobo wants to bring back all the youth who’ve drifted away, and bring more newcomers and their parents into the program.

Gonzalez, who has raised three children and doesn’t look anywhere near old enough to be the grandmother of another two, feels the same way. "Being a parent – that’s my proudest profession – you realize that you have to partner with people, to be conscious that they are human beings, not labels. You have to bring them in and work with them." She enthusiastically describes a program in which even security guards at a youth facility began, under her guidance, to know that program’s clientele as families.

As for the kids, she sees a broad mission: "I’ve worked with gangs, with children in Rikers, with youth groups... It’s not only looking at them as future presidents and councilpersons and doctors and nurses. When you look at today’s children, you’re looking at the environment in which your own children will live as they grow. It is that changing environment that will be our future."

Gonzalez confesses to having a soft spot for teenagers. "After a certain age, people seem to think that kids should have it all together. I hate to break it to everybody but, if you look around in the world, there are a lot of people in very strategic places who don’t have it all together." She adds, "We have a lot to learn from our youth."

Asked about her plans for the Youth Center, Gonzalez says, "I hope to become part of this wonderful community. With progress comes change. I hope I’m going to be part of very positive change as well as development. The previous Board did a great job of making sure the Youth Center is there and sustaining it. Our goal will be to take it to another level – enhancing and enriching it – and seeing to it that people have and feel ownership of the Youth Program. It should be a community resource."

It’s like the motto of the Police Athletic League, Gonzalez says. "Before kids can go places, they need a place to go." She adds, "That needs to be a place they want to be." She clearly intends to make the Youth Center that place for well over a thousand kids who already participate directly in activities at the Center and at PS 217, where the Youth Program runs Roosevelt Island’s Beacon Program – and she wants to reach more.

Scot Bobo invites parents who’d like to get involved to get in touch with him at LScotBobo@yahoo.com or at 212-486-3338.

The number at the Youth Center is 212-935-9365.