Before the day he first walked through the doors of the EX3 Ron Sandwith Teen Center, 17-year-old Marcos Fernandez had turned his life down a dead end path of truancy and drug use. On the verge of flunking out of school and wrapped up in the wrong crowd, Marcos said his life teetered on the edge of disaster.

But four months later, the teen proudly admits the help of the EX3 staff, a new group of friends, and the game of basketball have put him back on course.

At one time graduation seemed like unattainable objective, but Marcos now sees it as his ultimate goal.

For the first time in his young life, he has support, encouragement and safe place to hang out. For the first time, Marcos has a vision.

"Since I've been coming here," the tenth-grader said, "It's changed my life."

"I've quit hanging out with bad people," he said.

With the help of the center's free after-school tutoring, Marcos turned a report card of straight F's into mix of B's, C's and A's.

"My only F is in weight training," Marcos said. "But that's because they want me to write stuff and I only want to lift weights."

Marcos arrived at the EX3 Teen Center shortly after 5 p.m. last Tuedsay, eager to begin his tutoring session so that he could dedicate the rest of his afternoon to basketball.

But not every teenager who attends the EX3 teen center has a story like Marcos'.

Many of them show up after school just to relax and socialize in the new, posh building beside Harry S. Truman High School. Kevin Pham and his twin brother Steven, both 13, played basketball with Isaac Burris in the facility's spacious six-hoop gym. Two other teens challenged each other to video games on the center's Nintendo Game Cube and large flat-panel television.

Mystic Hightower, 13, and her friend Arlynn White-who offered an emphatic "15-and-a-half-about-to-be-16" for her age-sat in the center's caf/ and polished off their homework.

"It gives me something positive to do," said White, a talented visual artist who has her self-portrait displayed in the teen center.

Both White and Hightower come to the EX3 late night sessions on Friday nights to play pool, video games and socialize.

With free guitar lessons, cooking and photography classes, a recording studio, art room and large computer lab; the EX3 Ron Sandwith Teen Center seems well worth the $36 annual fee.

But despite its amenities, the nine-month-old facility could use a couple hundred more kids to sign up for membership.

"It's a really cool place, said EX3 Education Director Aaron Holsinger, "but it's just not being used (to the extent that) it could be."

Holsinger said the center considers the tutoring a strong selling point for teens-and particularly for their parents-to join. A sizeable grant from the Gates Foundation helps pay qualified tutors-many of them certified teachers-to conduct one-on-one sessions with teens. Tutors create a file on each student, track their study hours and follow their grades online throughout the semester, and keep tabs on their progress.

"We're trying to take tutoring to a new level," Holsinger said, "where we're getting connected with the teachers and the schools."

"Sometimes the kids won't take the initiative on their own," he said.

The Education Director pointed to a model report card he and Marcos established at the beginning of the semester. If the student turns his F's into passing grades, Holsinger said, he plans on treating Marcos to a steak dinner at the Outback.

Holsinger plans to begin recruiting teens from area middle and high schools in order to bring enrollment from 150 to its goal of 300-500.

"I'd like to see around 50-75 kids using the center during the day," he said.

"The idea is to make the center affordable," Holsinger said.

He added that other groups, like the local Americorps volunteers with Federal Way Public Schools, have pledged $1,000 for scholarships for teens who can't afford the $36 annual fee.

School Board President Evelyn Castellar held two ping-pong tournaments that generated the funds to supply the center with more than a dozen new scholarships. Castellar, a fiery competitor on the Board and on the ping-pong table, defeated every challenger she faced.

Both Holsinger and Executive Director Shelley Puariea said the EX3 Teen Center views transportation as another obstacle for teens using the facility.

Most of the center's high school students-and all of its middle school members-don't have their own transportation.

"We're trying to find ways to help kids stay longer and find them a way back home," Puariea said.

They hope to develop a relationship with the public schools, local transit and Metro to pick up students after school and drop them off in the evenings. Holsinger said the center continues to work on a system where the EX3 staff uses its own vans for transportation.

Holsinger said the teen center continues to adapt the resources it provides to meet the needs of its members.

"We've had kids tell us that that they want help finding jobs," Holsinger said, "So we've compiled job listings for them and helped them fill out applications."

Holsinger, a former FWHS basketball player who will attend the UW medical school in the fall, added that the EX3 center also assists teens in apply to college.

"We're helping them look towards the future," he said.