Skate Park @ Skyline

Greetings!

Thank you all for expressing your interest in exploring the idea of a skate park at Skyline for youth in our area. The following people decided to vote with their feet Sunday, April 19 and the following week: Josh Magnusson, Lynn Fahey, Cindy Sisofo, Tim Transue, Deb Ressler, Kari Butts, Lori Citro, Ivan Turner, III, Sarah Sacconey, Gwen Cichocki, and Joe DiEmidio.

At this point, I'd like for us to introduce ourselves to each other, and share what attrancted us to this kind of mission/project, and what we might be able to contribute. I want to set a meeting date, so we might also want to let each other know when would be the best time to meet (weekends, weeknights, etc.).

Kari Butts works at Heritage Elementary School, and shared with me Sunday (April 26) that she has already met with more than a dozen 5th graders (who traded away their recess to meet with her to talk about a skate park) and will be surveying them to get an idea of what they would be interested in. A couple of you have shared with me that you might know about some funding sources we could explore.

I spent yesterday visiting area skate shops and came up with the following info: The Newport Skate Park might be the best place for us to begin exploring what might be involved in putting a park together. The website says they're open on Wednesday nights, so if anyone's up for a field trip, I might be going tomorrow night. They've been running since 1997, and are an outreach ministry of Family Life Church.

At a skate shop in Newark, I saw a flyer about the Wilmington Skate Project. It looks like they're halfway toward a goal of raising $800,000 for a skate park to be built under I-95. They run Skate Jams to raise money and awareness from time to time, setting up elements in parking lots, and several hundred skaters always show up.

That's about all I have so far. Let us (everyone in the group) hear from you. Let me know if you're a Facebook maven, to see if it would be worth starting a group there. Check the church website, or simply share your comment on this Blog and let's see where we stand. Feel free to share why you signed up to join us, what attracts you to this project, what kind of vision you have for what you hope we will be able to accomplish (and when we might accomplish it), and what you think you might be able to bring to the effort (information, expertise, passion, research, etc.).

Let's get it on.
Bo