Franklin’s PowerfulKids teaches martial arts and life skills. It’s at risk of losing its space.

Rob Rowe put his martial arts class to work.

Kids punctuated the air with uppercuts and sidekicks and, at Rowe’s word, dropped to the ground at a moment’s notice to do push-ups. The young elementary kids practiced their moves with the middle school-aged leaders while Rowe watched for perfect form. Parents sat near the edge of the mats, and their kids looked for them to make sure they were seeing every move.

In between exercises and training, Rowe gathered the group around to recite important lessons: making good decisions, being aware of one’s actions, practicing honesty, among many others.

He helps them set weekly goals and awards their completion with multicolored bands on their belt. It’s a given for the kids to shout and clap “Yes you can! Yes you can!” to encourage the last students to push through their exercises.

“We tie every move that we do in class to a life skill that they’re going to find in their life,” Rowe said. “So, if we’re practicing discipline and we’re going to do a punch, then we got to put our toys away when we’re done with them. And so I tie those movements to something at home.”

Rowe’s PowerfulKids program has operated out of Franklin’s Bessie Rowell Community Center for the last eight years. The older kids said the program has helped them grow out of their timidness, encouraging development of confidence and leadership. Their parents rave about the change they’ve witnessed in a short period of time.

But PowerfulKids is at risk of losing access to the center.

The Franklin city government recently put the program on notice after it found out it runs as a limited liability company — and the center strictly permits use only to nonprofits or contractors, under a city ordinance.

Rowe and the PowerfulKids families say it’s an instrumental youth development program that delivers direct benefits to the city. But city leaders say they want to put an end to special exceptions and operate by the books.

The PowerfulKids program

Rowe, who lives in Franklin, suffered a traumatic brain injury and learned about neural pathways and coping skills through his medical team. Along the way, he discovered martial arts and said it helped connect his mind to his body. Separately, he studied child and character development and took personal lessons as a parent.

Combining all that led to the creation of PowerfulKids, a martial arts and youth development program that currently serves 16 to 20 kids. Like a typical karate class, the kids learn basic forms and movements and move up the ranks with their belts. An added layer of Rowe’s creation was to embed personal goal achievement and life skill building into the program.

“I was thinking about my journey, and repairing my mind and helping connect things again,” he said. “How can I help kids to have a better life too?”

The program fosters public speaking skills by encouraging students to introduce themselves to strangers and to talk confidently for videos. Depending on their level in the program, students can lead projects such as fundraising and food drives that benefit the community.

Ginette Chandler of Salisbury has had her 12-year-old son, Caden, in the program for four years. He was very shy when he started, she said; now, he leads exercises in the class and helps younger kids with their moves. Additionally, he raised $1,500 to buy a wheelchair lift for a Franklin veteran through raffle ticket sales over one summer.

“It is phenomenal most particularly for the kids, what it does for the kids, but also for the city of Franklin,” Chandler said. “… I’m always getting compliments from parents about what such a young leader my son is, and a young leader and mentor my son is to the other kids.”

Shayna Boyce of Northfield enrolled her 9-year-old daughter Piper in January and immediately noticed the change in her self-esteem, her social life and her schoolwork. She noted that the kids are involved in many group drives to donate goods to local organizations — last year they collected 400 pairs of socks and they recently gathered over 2,000 cans of turkey gravy.

Boyce said her daughter hasn’t led any projects yet and is still learning from the older kids, but she did tag on to another project where she adopted a fire hydrant in Franklin. In the winter, Piper shoveled the snow around the hydrant in case the fire department ever needed to use it.

“We’ve talked to other dojos. We’ve looked at other places. This is different, and in order to understand what it is, you really have to experience it,” she said. “It’s not just a martial arts class. It’s building up kids to believe in themselves, and to know that good exists, and [the program] wants you to succeed.”

Tension with the city

In March, Ian Carmichael took over as the Parks and Recreation Department’s director. He became familiar with PowerfulKids early in his tenure and said the program helped out with a city Easter event.

Carmichael went around to document the several programs that use the Bessie Rowell Community Center and asked PowerfulKids for information on its entity and fee structure, as well as any prior agreement with the city.

PowerfulKids operates as a limited liability company, which falls outside the permitted use of the center. According to the city ordinance, nonprofits, city government agencies or department-sponsored recreational groups are the only entities that can operate out of the center. For-profit companies can be allowed in the center if they enter into a contract with the city or are sponsored by a nonprofit.

“Due to the LLC structure for this group, they don’t fit the requirements of the ordinance for being able to rent or reserve community center space,” said Carmichael, who will be leaving his position late this month. “That was tough because I do think it’s a pretty good program.”

New guidelines for entering into a memorandum of understanding were established in January, and the city offered PowerfulKids a chance to enter that process. The program applied, but both Carmichael and City Manager Mitchel Kloewer said its application was missing certain documents, and they were not delivered after a follow-up inquiry.

Rowe said he had an agreement via email with the former parks and recreation director to be in the space. When asked, he said he submitted the memorandum within the 30 days he was allotted and did see follow-up emails from the city, but said he had other responsibilities at the time and failed to respond. Rowe reached out a week later via a phone call but did not get a response, he said.

On Aug. 31, the city council amended the code that outlined permitted use of the community center, and replaced mentions of the community center with “parks and recreation assets” to broaden the code’s application. Carmichael sent a letter to Rowe on Sept. 15, saying that change would no longer allow an MOU as a proper way to establish use of the building.

Rowe was given until Nov. 7 to start the process to either establish his organization as a nonprofit or become a city contractor, or PowerfulKids would have to leave the center, according to a letter sent by Carmichael.

“There’s an ordinance. We need people to fit it. We’re willing to figure out how to make all that work in the interim, but we need good faith efforts,” Carmichael said.

At a city council meeting Sept. 28, Kloewer said he admired the PowerfulKids program but the city is trying to abide by Franklin’s ordinance.

“It isn’t to section him out in any way. We simply have a set of rules. We need everybody to abide by them,” he said at the meeting. “When I was hired, one of the things this council told me is that they were tired of the special deals people have. That’s what I’m trying to eliminate.”

Next steps

At the end of class, Rowe and his higher-level kids picked up the cushioned mats and stack them high against the wall. They also pushed aside their kicking shields and other equipment they used in class.

He had been told he had to take many pieces of equipment out of the building and bring them back for every class, but there’s a compromise on leaving the mats.

Rowe said the process has been frustrating. He spoke to the council at the meeting Sept. 28 to tell them about all the benefits of the program. Some councilors heard about it for the first time that night.

Parents with kids in the program believe it should stay in the community center to continue providing benefits for the city. Chandler said the potential move of the program would affect her son heavily. She said she helps pack up equipment and wonders why it suddenly feels like they’re not welcome in the space.

“He wants two things out of life: He wants to become a math teacher … and he also wants to be a karate instructor,” she said of her son. “So, this is crushing his dreams, his goals. If Mr. Rowe is shut down, this is a huge blow for him.”

Rowe said he has been in communication with the city council about next steps toward keeping his place in the community center. He sent the missing documents from the MOU process to city council and has heard little response, he said.

He has not told many parents about the news because he wants to avoid any stress — but is doing everything in his power to stay, he said.

“I don’t like being in the spotlight. I didn’t want to go up there [to city council] and rock the boat,” Rowe said. “I want to do my thing and I want to try and do the right thing.”

This article was updated to clarify the extent of communication between Rowe and the city.