Naperville-based Alive Center for Teens to start franchising

Chicago Tribune

7 days ago

In 2020, Grey Bauer was headed into the eighth grade. At the time, between the COVID-19 pandemic and challenges personally, they weren't in the best headspace, Bauer, now 17, recalled.
But then they discovered the Alive Center for Teens in Naperville. The sense of comfort Bauer felt was immediate, they said.
'I completely fell in love with Alive,' said Bauer, who graduated from Metea Valley High School over the weekend. 'You're immediately welcomed with open arms.'
Now, Alive is looking to expand its reach.
The nonprofit is ready to start franchising, the center has announced. With locations in Naperville, Aurora and Hanover Park, the organization has launched a social franchise model and is hoping to 'significantly expand its proven teen support system statewide,' the release said.
'That's really the message we're (giving) out, that we're here,' said Kandice Henning, CEO of The Alive Center. 'That we have a solution that is proven and works and we are willing to share it. We really want to help more kids and impact more kids in a positive way. (We want to) help more families and more communities ultimately.'
The Alive Center opened in 2015. Designed for students in fifth through 12th grade, it offers free school and summer programming spanning a wide range of subjects and focus areas, including leadership, nutrition, stress management, meditation and creative expression, among others. It also offers free tutoring services.
At the core of the center's mission is to create the 'confident, impassioned and resilient leaders of tomorrow,' according to its website. As part of that vision, the nonprofit has a 20- to 30-member Teen Advisory Board that gives youth the opportunity to try their hand at leading their own initiatives and projects.
On the whole, the aim is 'preventative mental health care,' Henning said.
In last year's Illinois Youth Survey, 27% of DuPage County 10th- and 12th-graders said over a 12-month period, they had felt 'so sad or hopeless almost every day for two weeks or more in a row' that they stopped doing some usual activities. The Illinois Youth Survey is a self-report survey administered in school settings across the state every other year. The Illinois Department of Human Services has funded the administration of the survey since 1990.
'It's all about protective factors. … (It's about giving them) a space to be safe,' Henning said, 'and to feel where they belong because the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) says the number one thing that helps with positive mental health in youth and adults is connection.'
Franchising Alive's method has been a long time coming. The idea grew out of the B.R. Ryall YMCA in Glen Ellyn approaching the nonprofit three years ago about wanting to establish a franchise, Henning said. Originally, Alive's intent had been to work with the YMCA to do just that.
Ultimately, though, the Glen Ellyn facility instead ended up becoming certified by the Alive Center to take a teen-driven approach to programming rather than building out a full-blown franchise. But by that point, the Alive Center had already started creating the materials necessary to facilitate franchising, Henning said.
Initially, the Alive Center plans to focus on potential franchisees in Illinois, specifically the Chicago metropolitan area. Franchisees could include someone wanting to build out a new standalone center or a 'fractional franchise' as part of an already existing entity, Henning said. For the latter, she used the example of a Target offering a Starbucks franchise inside its store.
In the case of the Alive Center, a fractional franchise could look like a center integrated into a library or park district, or even a municipal building, she said.
Long-term, franchising will allow the Alive Center to grow faster, Henning said.
'If we went (with) the model of satellites … we might be able to do one a year but probably more likely one every two years,' she said. 'A franchise model enables us to do this much more quickly because it's not all on us.'
Franchisees will have access to training, consulting, standardized processes and procedures, customizable templates and ongoing collaborative support, according to Alive.
Since its inception eight years ago, the Alive Center has recorded more than 85,000 teen visits, serving more than 8,000 teens.
If it wasn't for the Alive Center, Bauer said, 'I truly don't think that I would be in a good headspace now.'
Post graduation, Bauer plans to attend College of DuPage for the next two years and after that transfer to Illinois State University. They want to be a teacher.