By Ashley M. Casey

Associate Editor

While the coronavirus pandemic forced the CanTeen to shut its doors in March when schools closed, the teen center in Cicero is back in business.

As of Aug. 3, the CanTeen is open to visitors from 2 to 6 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday. CanTeen staff is also available by appointment on Tuesdays and Thursdays for socially distant hangouts at local parks such as the Fortuna Parkway green space in Clay, Burnham Park in Mattydale and Lonergan Park in North Syracuse.

In place of the annual Gus Macker 3-on-3 Basketball Tournament, which was canceled this year because of the pandemic, the Central New York Food Truck Association and Gus Macker are partnering with the CanTeen to host an Open Air Market fundraiser this weekend.

The Open Air Market will take place from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 8, at Cicero-North Syracuse High School. The event features a craft vendor festival, food truck rodeo, raffles, and bottle and can drive to benefit the CanTeen. Social distancing and face coverings required.

“It came together at the very last minute,” said Youth Services Director Toni Brauchle.

While the Open Air Market will not generate as much revenue as the Macker juggernaut, Brauchle said anything helps as funding  streams from federal, state and local governments dry up.

“It means a lot. We’re excited with the prospect of raising anything,” she said.

The Macker tournament has taken place at C-NS the last several years, so the CanTeen team is pleased to be able to use the space for the market fundraiser.

“[Vendors will] be spaced out in the parking lot in the same area that the Gus Macker would have been,” Brauchle said. “We’re extremely grateful because it is a high-visibility spot. The lines for the spaces work out really well for social distancing purposes. We can spread the vendors pretty well … and that means the foot traffic can be spaced out as well.”

A handful of local businesses have allowed the CanTeen to keep the sponsorships they bought for the tournament.

“Everybody’s hurting right now so we’re trying to be extremely respectful to the local business community because not everybody has discretionary funds,” Brauchle said. “[We’re] trying to keep ourselves afloat until this passes.”

The pandemic has been hard on many of the CanTeen-agers.

“There’s some kids that are managing perfectly fine and there’s other kids that are really struggling with the isolation and not being able to see their friends,” Brauchle said.

The center held its senior celebration for graduating students July 22. Brauchle said about 19 kids attended the socially distant gathering, which featured entertainment from a DJ who is on the CanTeen board.

“Chick-fil-A donated some sandwiches. It was just a nice gathering and the kids got to spend some time with some friends that they hadn’t seen since March,” Brauchle said.

In June, the CanTeen team delivered cakes to about 25 graduating seniors who regularly visited the center over their high school careers, and Assistant Youth Services Director Amy Venditte cheered on the students at graduation.

“We tried to do the best we can to honor the seniors that graduated from the district,” Brauchle said.

The center has continued to connect with teens via social media and park hangouts.

“We’ve had some really deep conversations with these kids [about] everything that’s happening in the world whether it’s the pandemic or Black Lives Matter or in June we had Pride Month,” Brauchle said. “There are some kids that really have something to say about that and don’t have a lot of platforms. It was brought to our attention early on that these are not conversations some of them can have in their own households, so having adults that can have that conversation is huge.”

As the North Syracuse Central School District rolled out its fall reopening plan last week, the CanTeen plans to be open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday afternoons. Things will look different — furniture has been reconfigured to facilitate social distancing, and the communal jugs of Kool-Aid in the fridge have been replaced by single-serve Capri Suns and water bottles. The center expects far fewer visitors this fall, especially since there will be no transportation from North Syracuse Junior High School.

“We’re still connecting with kids but it looks far different from the traditional methods that we’re used to,” Brauchle said.

To donate to the CanTeen or learn more about its mission, visit canteencny.com.