In September of 2006, we were granted the site for our skate park. This was provided by our city, and was a great milestone in our efforts! The cost for our park will be $175,000. The city and county have both recently made a commitment of $50,000 each in their budgets toward the construction of the park. This leaves us to raise the remaining needed funds.
We feel this is something that can be done, with your help and the help of others, who believe in the positive impact it will have on our children and community. If you would like to get involved in this exciting project, feel free to contact us or come to one of our regular monthly meetings! **UPDATE** We are proud to announce that the Tony Hawk Foundation is providing a grant for our project in the amount of $10,000! Thanks for all the support, there has just been a tremendous outpour of help in turning our dream into a reality. We are especially thankful to each and every person who has helped in some way, whether large or small. We are truly blessed!
Here are some of the exciting things our kids have been working on these past few months:
We set up a booth at the 2006 Parenting Fair in March to try and gain some support. Our group took a trip in the spring of 2006 to Kentucky to visit some of the larger skate parks in order to see what elements they wanted to include in the design of a park here. While there, we met with James O'laughlin of Suburban Rails, the designers of one of the parks, and asked them to submit a design within what we felt was our budget. This design is on the cover of our brochure, and has been highly anticipated by our youth.
Further efforts included numerous events, such as our first in July 2006 at a local pizza restaurant, used to raise money to open a booth at the Greene County Fair that year. Our kids are highly involved in working for their goal. They have held car washes, skate demonstrations, a pancake breakfast, etc. They have sold raffle tickets, t-shirts, skateboard decks and other items to try and raise money to build their skate park. We also had a float in this past year’s Christmas parade. This Spring, once again, the kids visited other on a two day excursion that took them from Kentucky, to Ohio, Indiana, and finally, back to Tennessee, in order to see first hand some of the parks designed and built by Suburban Rails. (Incidentally, all expenses on these trips are fully paid for by the, not by the organization's funds.) Each of these events has been a learning experience for our children. Skateboarding itself, takes lots of patience, practice, and commitment. These children are dedicating themselves to a sport that is important to them, and we hope you will see how worthwhile the project truly is.