StraightFromTheHip

DESERT PRO SKATE - LAS CRUCES, NM

The City of Las Cruces only has very few recreational activities available. For children there are only a few outlets, there is a club, a bowling alley, and your standard sports, like football and basketball (which is not bad at all). My son, a skateboarder, has indicated that there is no place to skate and that he and his friends get into trouble because they are skating on private property. Many community members, even my lawyer has indicated that there is a huge need for a skatepark.

There are no indoor skateparks in the entire state of New Mexico. During our summer months, we find it way too hot to skate outdoors, and in the winter months we have to deal with large amounts of rain and snow. The two outdoor concrete parks, which the city really messed up, go virtually unused. Desert Pro Skate will fill this void for all generations.

At this time, we are still working on the conceptual design for the park. The park will be a 30,000 Square ft Hybrid Park; we will be able to support all levels of skaters. We will incorporate vert skating, bowl skating, many rails, stairs, and even a full 360 loop/tube. The park will feature plenty of transfers and stop points. The park will be designed by professional skaters, with over 50 years of industry experience.

The park will have fully-functioning concession stands with a small, but tasty selection of items, a Pro Shop that can service all needs, and last but not least, a Roller Rink complete with a state-of-the-art sound system, lasers and lights. We will provide Friday/Saturday night skate under the lights and Sunday inline roller competitions during the day.

We have found 3.25 acres of land in Las Cruces, NM that would serve as a prime location. We would be able to host large events and I even plan to petition to established events like the Xgames, Asian Games and others.

I hope to make our building design so unique that we generate interest from major skate magazines. I am confident our model will be one of the most sought-after skatepark designs.

I am all about making what the public wants and needs.

Any and everything will help our cause so please vote !!

We will be posting conceptual designs very soon and we will have our website up and running shortly.

Thank You and Respectfully Yours

The Staff of Desert Pro Skate !!!

DALLAS, PA - NORTHEAST PENNSYLVANIA FREE SKATE PARK ASSOCIATION

First off, we would like to thank you for this opportunity and for your involvement in helping skatepark projects. We appreciate this greatly, even though, the thought of competing against other skatepark projects is a bit strange to us considering that we are all striving for the same thing (to support the growth of skateboarding in our area). I believe we can all agree that we would like to see all these skatepark projects completed. So with that said, here is our story so far…

Our association came to pass from 3 long-time skaters (ages 27-30) who had finally seen enough negativity toward skateboarding in our area and decided to do something about it. We came together sharing one common purpose- to do something positive for the future of skateboarding and the youth of our area. We will not stop until we get this free concrete skatepark facitlity completed!

We have just started out as an association and have a long long way to go toward reaching our goal, but we have done a lot on our own to raise awareness and money for our cause:

skate contests
music shows
art show
raffles
video premiere
city cleanups
car washes

We have come to see that this is going to be a lot harder than we had thought, because of the area in which we live in. Our area is extremely old-fashioned and has the #1 most elderly population in the world. So, with that considered we need to first change the way in which people view skateboarding in our area. People need to realize that skateboarding is the future of recreation and that we need to embrace this and help support it in our youth community today.

We have met with our city council on 3 separate occasions and, sadly, they still do not understand what we are striving for. However, we will not be put down and we will not give up. We are constantly moving forward and keeping a positive outlook. Now, we are in the midst of taking a different approach and meeting with our county commissioners.

We are also getting our message across to local businesses/newspapers/radio stations to help us become a more established and organized community to be taken more seriously. We understand that it is going to take everyones help as a community to come together to make this skatepark happen and we have a lot of new fundraising ideas we are currently working on to help us with this:

local music compilation cd
high school candy bar sales
high school battle of bands
skateshop collaboration decks
huge skate/music/art festival
film festival

We are hoping if we win this competition and start getting some real $ contributions from our end, we can be taken more seriously as well.

thank you again!

http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w119/lholland13/Realfacemelter.jpg

SKATEPARK COMMITTEE OF WESTERVILLE, OHIO

Ohio has produced some big names in skateboarding past and present including Rob Dyrdek, Kristian Svitak, and Chad Muska. Pro skater Chad Knight even grew up in Westerville. But where did he skate? We don’t even have a skatepark.

Westerville is full of baseball and soccer fields, tennis and basketball courts, playgrounds and bike paths. Why not a skatepark?

Skateboarding is back on the rise and it’s about time Westerville takes some action. Right now, there are no legal spots for our communities skateboarders to ride. They are in the streets and parking lots of our local businesses. This is dangerous and we need to accommodate the growing popularity of the sport.

We are in the beginning stages of forming a skatepark committee to help see this project through to completion. Our goal is to build a free, public skatepark that, not only provides a place for the local skaters to gather, but also attracts skaters from surrounding communities to visit Westerville. A destination skatepark, if you will. We realize this will take quite a bit of funding and have started the application process for several grants.

Our local skate community is a tight-knit group and we are ready and willing to put forth the effort to kick-start the fundraising and create awareness for what we are trying to accomplish.

Westerville is already known for it’s outstanding recreational options, a skatepark will only enhance that resume. Let’s give those Ohio-born Pro Skaters another reason to come back home.

SISSETON, SOUTH DAKOTA

We are a small rural community known for our recreational spaces. Sisseton is surrounded by lakes and regional parks that offer hunting, fishing, skiing, golf, horseback riding, baseball/soccer fields, campgrounds and much, much more. Unfortunately, not one of these places offers a skatepark for our children.

A skatepark would enhance our community and offer another option to our youth. With the popularity of skateboarding on the rise, we expect to see more and more of our community taking up the activity.

My sons are avid skateboarders and right now they only have our driveway available to practice their tricks and techniques. The ball players have their fields and the skaters should have their skatepark. A place for the children to gather and enjoy but, most importantly, a SAFE place for our children. Let’s keep these kids off the streets and out of the dark alleys and give them a place they can call their own.

We want a park that can support all levels of skaters, from beginners to experts. We are open to both above ground and concrete designs. Our committee has just formed and we are in the early stages of fundraising. We are willing to put the work in to achieve our goal of building a skatepark in Sisseton.

SPENCER SKATEPARK COMMITTEE - SPENCER, WEST VIRGINIA

It’s alive!

Way back in the hills of West Virginia, well off the beaten path, you’ll find the quiet little town of Spencer. Starting about a year ago, if you were traveling through and stopped at the coffee shop downtown and listened to the locals whispering, you’d hear bits and pieces of the latest rumor.

It seemed, folks were saying, that something peculiar was growing out there. Something they’d heard of before, but never thought they’d see in this town. After all, those things belonged in the big cities! Heck, the closest sighting of one to Spencer was 68 miles away, in Charleston! They’d never heard tell of one out here in the country! Worse, if you looked closely when the sun was out, you could even catch a glimpse of it happening now and then!

As time went on, the whispers got louder. And then, can you believe it? Some people were actually feeding this “thing” and helping it grow! And they were proud of it! They had car washes and hot dog sales to get money for it. And as we speak, they are planning on washing windows for customers at the gas station, selling Krispy Kreme donuts, and having a Cow Plop Bingo. Where else but in the country, would you find a group willing to sell 400 numbered tickets for $10 each, mark off a grid pattern on the skatepark, number the squares, bring in a cow, and wait for it to do it’s business? The person with the ticket matching the “occupied” square wins $1,000! And people will actually sit around and wait and watch for this to happen! At least once a month this group is doing something to raise money to help.

While some of the people were talking to each other about this “thing” at the coffee shop, others were talking to the Mayor. He got right on board with the group that was feeding it! He even appropriated a piece of city-owned land for the place to keep it. By now the word was out. This mysterious “thing” was a skatepark!

It didn’t take long for folks to come around and appreciate that this was a good thing for this town where there are 2500 kids in the school system, 20% of whom are “at risk.” In this economically depressed area, where 22% of our individuals have income below the national poverty level, the rates of health-related issues, including obesity, diabetes and physical inactivity, are significantly higher than the national average. In addition, depression is the leading cause of death of children ages 5 to 19 in West Virginia. They quickly grasped that the idea of the kids having a quality skatepark as a place to gather safely was a good one. No more sightings on the street! No more strange noises outside the doors of the businesses at night! People could breathe easily once again!

Then the local newspaper ran an article right on the front page. Now EVERYBODY knows about it. The article told how the Skatepark Committee had cleaned up the area, bought materials, and built some temporary ramps and obstacles to use while they raise money for permanent structures.

To make sure the Skatepark develops properly, the committee is seeking advice from specialists. These experts are communicating with the people who will be using the Skatepark and will advise them on its proper growth. After all, now that we’ve discovered how valuable a Skatepark is to our community, we’d like to keep it alive and well for many years to come.

So now if you stop at the coffee shop, you won’t hear any more whispering! No more rumors about what’s growing. Now it’s a known fact! If you want to hear more about it, all you have to do is go to one of the weekly meetings at the theater. Even better, if you want to see it with your own eyes, all you have to do is go downtown to the skatepark area and look. Chances are good that you’ll see lots of our young people there doing things that will amaze you, and socializing with kids they wouldn’t ordinarily see in the course of their school day. The secret is no longer a secret! And by next year, the skatepark will be a full-grown thing of beauty that folks from miles around will be coming to enjoy.