The community center at Woodside Village is a comfortable place with a decorated tree in one corner and a wall of drawings. “You are my BFF,” reads one.

The drawings are created by children in the afterschool programs at the YMCA who visit Woodside once a week as part of the Island Elderly Housing Bridging program, the brainchild of Blueberry Van driver Kevin McFarland.

“It’s a long walk,” said kindergartner Kamari Clements of the journey from the Y to the community center next door.

On a recent Monday afternoon the Makos youth swim team is practicing its freestyle strokes, swimming up and down the lanes of the YMCA, as co-coach Rainy Goodale, 42, demonstrates proper technique by making slicing motions though the air. A group of swim-capped youngsters watches, trying to learn by osmosis.

This weekend Mrs. Goodale will travel with the team to Eastham for the annual Southeastern Massachusetts Swim League distance meet. But the sport has taken her far outside the state lines of Massachusetts

There’s a fully furnished kitchen, living room, study area, recording studio, performance stage, pool table and sound booth. Not to mention two pinball machines.

The new YMCA’s Alexandra Gagnon Teen Center may sound like a hip downtown apartment building, but it promises to become a hub of teen life on the Vineyard.

After the opening of the center last Saturday afternoon, Island teens now have a place to call their own. Community members young and old gathered for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate a safe and fun space.

Soon after the YMCA opened its doors in the spring of 2010, the Martha’s Vineyard Teen Center moved from its location at Cottagers’ Corner in Oak Bluffs to a temporary spot in the Y’s basement. Tony Lombardi, the Teen Center director, thought they were going to relocate there for a few years before moving on to a new location. Then the Alexandra Gagnon Foundation, who also funded Cottagers’ Corner, came up with a plan.