Atlanta opens new center for at-risk youth, aimed at reducing crime
A fourth At-Promise center officially opened Friday, as Atlanta leaders consider opening more to help reduce crime among the city’s youth.
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said the new center, opened on Martin Luther King J. Drive, is a valuable addition to the community and offers a place for kids to go after school, during the summer and on weekends.
“These are community-wide investments. Whether your kid is going to the At-Promise center or not, it’s the whole community that benefits,” Dickens said. “These kids are now graduating and they’re going to be part of your workforce. They’re going to go to college and also they’re not doing things that we don’t want them to do, which is get in trouble.”
The ribbon-cutting ceremony was attended by local officials, community members and kids who are part of the program. The four centers are managed by the Atlanta Police Foundation, with cost divided up between the foundation and the city, and designed to give children and teenagers an alternative to being on the streets or joining a life of crime. QuickTrip donated $3.5 million to build the center.
Foundation president and CEO Dave Wilkinson said the location, in west Atlanta, was picked because of the high volume of youth crime in the area.
Wilkinson said the thinking behind the centers is a youth crime prevention strategy that is already showing results.
“Changing the trajectory of those people became the paramount issue that we wanted to solve,” Wilkinson said.
Since 2017, three other At-Promise centers have opened, which has allowed the city to serve more than 2,000 young people ages 12 to 24. According to the police foundation, the centers cut recidivism, or a return to crime, down to just 6% from more than 85% in 2017.
Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum said the centers are directly responsible for a reduction in crime because they focus on working around three core components: education, economic opportunity and a stable home life.
“That contributes to making sure we continue to see a reduction in juvenile crime, shootings and gun violence associated with young men and women of the city, both as perpetrators and victims,” Schierbaum said.
The city saw fewer than 100 homicides in 2025, which hadn’t occurred since 2019. Schierbaum said the At-Promise centers and the city’s focus on reducing youth crime were big contributors in reducing that number.
Among those the centers have helped is Teiarra Sims, who after graduating from high school was arrested and referenced to the center by the court system. Sims said before joining the center, she was homeless, unemployed and in need of child care as a single mother.
Now, she is thriving.
“At-Promise is like a second home to me, a safe space where you can grow and truly thrive in a positive environment,” Sims, who is now employed at the center’s south location, said. “At-Promise didn’t just help me survive, it helped me build a future.”
The fourth center is a collaboration between the city, the police foundation and private businesses in the area. QuikTrip Atlanta division chairman Robert Smith said they decided to contribute funds because it’s a way to give back to the communities where the company’s employees live.
“If we’re going to invest in something, it needs to be something that we feel confident our employees are getting their money’s worth,” Smith said. “When we looked at the numbers, when we looked at the results, it just made sense.”
Wilkinson said they are actively looking into other areas of the city where an At-Promise center might be needed.
“We need to really invest in the strategy by doing the research to identify what location will have the most impact,” he said. “We’re studying that now, so to be determined.”
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