“This is not just a place where kids can come and game,” said Matt King, the room’s designer. “All of these machines are actually hooked up to a gaming software where we actually award the kids points, and [those points] unlock time. So, if they don’t do their homework, they don’t get to play.”
This aspect of “gamifying” kids’ positive achievements was critical for King and his business partner Stephen Hightower II — who together founded the Middletown-based King-Hightower Strategies marketing and strategy firm. They were the two who locked down the $25,000 anonymous donation to renovate the room.
Hightower II, in particular, was shaped by the center while growing up. For him, it was a community staple where he connected with role models in Middletown, including his father, Stephen Hightower Sr., the founder of Hightowers Petroleum Co.
“It was always a place where you learnt,” Hightower II said. “The generations above us, … they were always bringing us here to teach us about our history, teach us about business, about manners — just all kinds of things.”
“It was always a safe place to go, and it was always like home,” Hightower II said.
And, that part has remained true of the community center to this day. The center still offers the same respite and the same chance to create community that it did when he was a kid.
But, not much at the community center has changed in the time since to accommodate today’s kids. In his position now as a local businessman and father, Hightower II felt that the center could use a special project that would bring kids to the center the same way he was brought to it.
Hightower II and King searched for the right idea to bring to the center, and some friends also wanted to help the cause. Once King and Hightower II landed on the gaming room and pitched it, an anonymous-to-the-public friend said, “I’m in,” and funded it, according to Hightower II.
As Hightower II and the Community Building Institute’s Executive Director Karin Maney tells it, the gaming room is specifically valuable because it can bring in younger kids who might not otherwise be drawn to the previously sports-heavy Sonny Hill.
“There are a lot of kids that aren’t gonna do sports. This is an opportunity for us to grab the kids that aren’t into athletics,” Maney said.
“You need to meet them where they’re at,” Hightower II said. “Videogames and gaming — I have a nine-year-old son and it’s all he does.”
Hightower II said gaming can be a way to get younger kids into the community center at a particularly important age.
“You want to get nine, 10 and 11 year-olds here before they have other options that are not positive,” Hightower II said. “Just get them in here, and now they have a safe place. And then, we’re able to begin to mentor and foster their potential while they’re here.”
Once Hightower II and King locked down the funding, they wanted to bring their idea to life promptly, before the center undergoes a massive renovation and expansion next year with $8.1 million from Middletown Schools, the City of Middletown and the Butler County Commissioners.
“We didn’t want to wait, we wanted to do something right away,” King said. “It’s been a long time since this room has had this much life, and when you walk in you can just feel it.”
The palpable excitement surrounding Middie Game Center is indicative of the excitement of what’s next for the Robert “Sonny” Hill Jr. Community Center as it celebrates its 80th anniversary. This influx of investment that’s focused on technology is in line with the renovations set to take place next year, Middletown City Manager Paul Lolli said.
“This is just the start of a great project that’s going to be going on down here on this whole property,” Lolli said. “The future we’re gonna have — with the remodeling and the building of what’s to come — [is] going to present our youth with the opportunity to achieve both academically and socially.”
Maney and Lolli both said the new-look Sonny Hill center will be a place that hopes to draw the entire community in.
“It’s gonna be a community center for everybody in Middletown,” Maney said.
With a new technological focus, staff at the center is hoping to build greater workforce development programs that gradually, and sometimes subliminally, can help prepare Middletown kids for the jobs of today and tomorrow.
Marie Edwards, the out-of-school program director at Sonny Hill, said the center plans to continue to grow the Middie Game Center program and additionally provide resources for folks to learn how to program, code, or even build a computer once renovations are complete.
At some point, the building will have a dedicated, full-time employee managing and directing Middie Game Center, someone who “can help build out this program,” Edwards said.
As for Edwards, she’s excited about the addition of the game room. Edwards, too, grew up going to Sonny Hill and has been an employee for over a decade.
“I’m excited because our students are getting something that they deserve,” Edwards said. “They get to come to a building where they are wanted. They are encouraged to come in, they are welcome here, and they [now] have something especially for them.”
“This shows that hey, somebody really made an investment. It’s not a hand-me-down, [it’s not something] somebody got rid of out of their garage or their basement,” Edwards said. “No, somebody really took the time to invest, and see what the kids needed and wanted, and they made it happen.”
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