Best Buy Teen Tech Center set to close this week after Best Buy ends funding

After seven years of serving as a creative hub, technology lab and safe haven for young people across Dallas County, Best Buy Teen Tech Center in Selma is closing at the end of April as national grant funding from Best Buy comes to an end.

The center, housed through a partnership with Wallace Community College Selma, has helped hundreds of teens since opening in August 2019, providing free access to technology, career training, artistic opportunities and paid internships – resources many say cannot be found anywhere else in Selma.

For students like Selma High sophomore Zachenzie Millhouse, 16, the closure means losing more than just a building.

“When I come here, this is a creative outlet for me,” Millhouse said. “It helped open my mind to new things. You can’t find anywhere else like this in Selma.”

Millhouse said the Teen Tech Center helped her develop her passion for theater — an opportunity she could not pursue at school because there are no theater classes or clubs available. With guidance from staff, she wrote two plays over the years.

“I had no guidance before now,” Millhouse said. “This place helped me with directing skills, writing and learning how to bring stories to life.”

For Michael Love Jr., a freshman at Wallace Community College Selma who hopes to become a nurse anesthetist, the Teen Tech Center opened professional doors. Love recently landed a summer internship producing a television show for a Chicago firm.

“What else is there for young people to do here? There’s no mall, no bowling alley, no movie theater,” Love said. “This gave us somewhere to go – and it gave us job readiness.”

Letti Hasberry, Pathways facilitator and College 2 Careers coordinator, and Kaymon McGuire, program coordinator, said the closure comes despite trying to secure alternative funding after learning earlier this year that Best Buy’s grant support would end. The annual grant provided roughly $155,000 to cover salaries for two employees, operations, equipment and programming.

Hasberry said efforts were made to seek grants and secure long-term local support, including conversations about whether Wallace would continue funding the center, but no solution emerged.

The center houses more than $100,000 in equipment, including a music studio, podcasting tools, photography and video equipment, drones, design software and T-shirt production technology, Hasberry said. Students learned to use Adobe products, build resumes, practice interview skills, create business plans and develop digital literacy skills that translated directly into careers.

The Teen Tech Center also connected students with paid summer internships, including placements in production studios, and partnered with organizations such as Drug Free Communities of Dallas County, local schools, church groups and the Edmundite Missions, which regularly brought students to the center.

Its busiest season was summer, when school was out and church groups sometimes brought 30 children a day.

The center served students from every high school in Dallas County, as well as homeschool students, dual-enrollment students and after-school programs. It became home to esports competitions, media days for school athletics and collaborative creative projects that brought together students from different backgrounds and schools.

“School is more restrictive,” Millhouse said. “Here, students come to find new interests, make friends from other schools and hear different ideas. Nothing in Selma is like it.”

Hasberry worries what the loss means for a city already short on youth activities.

“In a place where there’s already little for teenagers to do, this is one less thing,” she said.