A Conversation with Steve Pappajohn
At the heart of the Dover Teen Center is Steve Pappajohn.
Steve built his career around youth development and leadership. With a Master’s Degree in Education from Keene State College, he previously served as an Assistant Dean of Students at the University of New Hampshire where he guided the fraternity and sorority community. Broad-shouldered and warm0faced, he carries the type of kindness that puts people at easy. He’s equal parts laid-back and lively, often spotted sunglasses and Red Sox gear or a Bruins jersey. And if there’s one thing he might take a little too seriously, it’s his fantasy sports leagues.
More than just a hangout, the Dover Teen Center offers programming designed to foster personal growth, creativity, and problem-solving skills. Originally operated under the Health and Human Services umbrella in the 1990s and was closely tied to the juvenile probation system. The program functioned as a space where court-mandated and at-risk youth were required to log hours, receive academic support, and access basic mental health resources. However, by the early 2000s, the program began experiencing operational issues, including frequent conflicts among attendees and drug use during after-school hours. The Dover Police Department responded to calls at the center almost weekly.
In 2005, Police Chief William Fenniman proposed integrating the center into the department’s existing youth outreach initiatives. The McConnell Center became the new home for the Teen Center, sharing space with Dover Youth to Youth, a well-established substance abuse prevention program. The transition aimed to transform the Teen Center from a reactive model to a proactive model, providing mentorship and community support before issues escalated. While we lack concrete statistics for Dover, all available evidences suggests the transition to the police-led Teen Center, where young people engaged in positive activities rather than finding themselves in harmful situations, overall significantly reduced youth crime, and youth-related incidents are so infrequent they rarely make headlines.
Although Steve says the Teen Center is open to anyone, the center really targets single-parent families, lower income families, kids with pre-diagnosed mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, ADHD, substance abuse in the household, or domestic violience, trauma. “Those are the kinds of things that make kids at risk,” Steve says, “and maybe, they’re just really upset at where they are—that maybe they didn’t get to choose where they are in life. A kid that needs to be out of the home because, you know, the home isn’t really a great place to be. Those afternoon hours [at the Teen Center] are kind of an oasis.”
The Teen Center sees between 20 and 25 kids a day with over 140 registered participants.
“That’s been the course for the better part of 10 years,” says Steve. “The day kids stop coming, that’s when we’ll know that something’s not right here [the Teen Center]. You’re not going to eliminae every young adult from being…” And Steve struggles for the right word here. “…undriven.”
“But you might make a dent if they had something in their adolescent years to push them along,” he continues.
Although current and up to date numbers aren’t readily available for 2025, the 2022 Annual Suicide Report reveals alarming trends across New Hampshire. In 2021, 1 in 4 youth reported seriously considering suicide, and 1 in 10 had made an attempt. Suicide rates amonth NH youth stood slightly above the national average. The most common methods included firearms, hanging/strangulation, drug overdoses… Suicide attempts far outnumbered actual deaths, emphasizing the critical need for prevention efforts, including early intervention, mental health support, and limiting access to lethal means. In a 2021 Foster’s Daily Democrat article, reporter Megan Fernandes recounted the deaths of Alex L. Leclerc on January 9, 2018, Brian Schultz on February 7, 2019, and Andre Schaeffer on June 12, 2021.
Alex, described as a smart, athletic, and charismatic young man, excelled in sports; his quick wit and sense of humor left a lasting impressionon those around him. Brian, a talented percussionist, was known for his kindness and adventurous spirit. He often parasailed and saw Broadway shows. Andre, who had a passion for cheerleading, dreamed of changing the world.
“This is not a problem the school can fix alone, this is a public health emergency. We are lucky here in Dover to have community allies to partner with,” Dr. Christine Boston told Fernandes, then Assistant Superintendent of Student Services for the Dover School District and now Assistant Superintendent. “Take it seriously when a teen talks about wanting to die, feeling hopeless, not having a purpose or being a burden. Take note when you notice an increased use of alcohol or drugs, sleeping too little or too much, withdrawal, and feelings of isolation,” Boston continued.
The string of tragedies led to the formation of the Dover Mental Health Alliance (DMHA), a direct community response to the suicides. The DMHA aims to raise awareness about mental health, reduce stigma, and provide vital resources to both individuals and families. Working in partnership with the Dover School District, local organizations, and community members, the DMHA offers mental health first aid training and organizes initiatives like the “Safe Spaces” program, which designates businesses and public institutions as places where people can seek support.
The Dover Teen Center is one of DHMHA’s designated Safe Spaces.
Safe Spaces, no matter how well-intentioned, can’t always prevent tragedy. The deaths of Alex, Brian, and Andre remind us even with support systems in place, some young people still slip through the cracks. It’s a sobering reality—but one that reinforces the urgency of Steve’s work at the Teen Center. Because the goal isn’t just to keep kids busy after school, but to break the cycles that lead to isolation, despair. Lost potential.
“We had this one kid,” Steve says. “He had a rough home life. He was angry all the time. Always on the edge of a fight. But he kept showing up. One day, he got into music—just messing around. Nothing formal—and it stuck. He started writing his own stuff, producing beats. Now? He’s working in a studio down in Boston. He told me, ‘If I hadn’t found that outlet, I don’t know where I’d be. Probably locked up.’”
Most youth programs operate on damage control. That’s what the Teen Center program was already doing underneath the Health and Human Services umbrella back in the 1990s. And other programs around the country emulate: the five-phase Prince George’s County Juvenile Drug Court, for example, where participants are required to attend substance abuse counseling, submit to random drug screenings, and maintain regular school attendance or employment (PrinceGeorgesCourts.org). Or the Truancy Intervention Project in Atlanta, Georgia, where the campaign is designed to help students understand the benefits of high school graduation and discourage them from dropping out, except they’re only catching students after 5 unexcused abscenses with a letter in the mail (Pceinc.org). These programs are essential in addressing immediate issues, but they focus on mitigating current problems—sometimes after the fact—rather than fostering long-term personal development and leadership among youth. The Dover Teen Center today, however, works before kids hit crisis mode. There’s no mandatory attendance, no court orders, no fixing troubled youth. Kids show up because they want to.
And Steve and his team structure the Teen Center with a rhythm that keeps kids engaged, offering theme days designed around what they actually enjoy, creating a space where teens want to participate, where they can explore interests they might not have had the chance to before. Board games, card games, and fierce PlayStation and Switch tournaments on game day. Keyboard, guitars, and a small recording setup, on Creative Arts and Music Days where kids are free to just mess around. Trips to the park, seasonal activities, collaborations with other community groups on Outdoor Days and Special Events, reminders that the Teen Center isn’t just four walls, but a bridge into their own community.
Recently, Food & Cooking Day got a major upgrade with the newly renovated kitchen, transforming the space into more than just a place to make meals. Teens step up as leaders, teaching their peers how to cook dishes from their family traditions. Others immerse themselves in the process—chopping, stirring, experimenting—finding joy in creating something from scratch. For many, the real impact comes from sharing a meal in a communal, comforting, and nourishing way—an experience that might be missing at home. A lot of the kids too are responsible for feeding younger siblings but have never been taught how to cook. The kitchen provides them with real world skills that completely change the way they take care of themselves and their families.
“I had a kid who came back to visit five years later,” says Steve. “I didn’t even recognize him at first—he had cleaned up. Was doing great in college, and just wanted to say thank you. He told me, ‘I didn’t realize it at the time, but you guys gave me a place where I felt like I wasn’t alone.’”
Every year, University of New Hampshire students intern at the Teen Center, stepping into roles as mentors and role models. But they aren’t teachers, counselors, or authority figures. They aren’t adults delivering lectures about success. They’re just college students—regular people who look like them, talk like them, and maybe even grew up in the same kind of environment.
“For some of these kids,” Steve explains, “they don’t even consider college an option. No one in their family had ever gone, so why would they? College is just not part of their world. But then, they meet one of our [UNH] interns, and that person is just a couple years older than them, and suddenly. It’s like, ‘Wait. You go to college? You’re just like me!’ That’s when the lightbulb goes off. College isn’t some far-off thing for ‘other people.’ It’s something they could actually do.”
That moment—when the abstract idea of college becomes real—isn’t something a teacher or guidance counselor can force. It has to be seen to be believed. And for many of these teens, meeting an intern who looks like them, who isn’t some “genius” or from a wealthy family, flips a switch they didn’t know existed.
“One kid ended up going into social work. He’s out there now doing incredible things. Working with youth, and I remember when he first came in—quiet, barely looked you in the eye. Now he’s mentoring kids just like he was.”
For those who don’t end up choosing college, the mentorship still shifts something. It shows them that people just like them have moved forward, found opportunities, and built lives beyond high school. It expands their sense of what’s possible.
“These kids are navigating this really treacherous highway of adolescence without a roadmap. They have to start learning to lean on people they trust. That means those adults in their life—the coaches, the teachers, the admin—but when they’re not ready for that, they have these college kids here who just get it.”
“Not every success story is flashy. Sometimes, it’s about giving a kid a place where they feel safe. I had one kid who came in every day and barely talked. Just sat in the corner, played video games. Listened to music. A couple years later, he told me, ‘This place saved my life.’
Steve, just for a moment, paused, took a breath. His shoulders carry the weight when he says, “That’s it. That’s the whole thing, right?” He says the words casually, but. A lifetime of watching kids find their way, stumble, and get back up again. Watching lightbubls go off, knowing most of them won’t fully understand what the Teen Center gave them until years later. But he knows.
And he keeps showing up. Every day. Every year. Because as long as kids keep walking through the doors, he’ll be here to meet them.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available 24/7/365 at 1-800-273-TALK (8255). NAMI NH’s Information & Resource Line at 1-800-242-6264 is not a crisis line but will connect families with local resources and support in the Granite State. For more information on mental health first aid training, contact Dover Mental Health Alliance via dovermentalhealthalliance.org.
