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A group of young skateboarders from San Diego, CA, recently met up with park planners to give them an idea of what they would like to see in their new skate park.
With skateboarding highly popular among teens and not enough safe places to skate, members of the Mid-City CAN Youth Council took it upon themselves to find a way to get a skate park for the community.
“After three and a half years working on this campaign I’m really proud of our efforts to bring a skate park to the community,” Angeli Hernandez, a Mid-City CAN Youth Council Member said, in a Mid-City blog. “I’m even prouder that the whole community can benefit from this.”
As a result of the Youth Council’s efforts and support from organizations like the Mid-City Community Advocacy Network, Mid-City Skatepark Advocacy Group, City Heights Area Planning Committee, City Heights Recreation Council, Cherokee Point Elementary, The California Endowment and the Tony Hawk Foundation, many local kids and teens will have their very own 14,000 square foot skate park. The skate park will be added to an existing park in City Heights.
“It keeps them safe and keeps them out of harm’s way,” said Mid-City CAN Youth Council member Henry Mallory. “If they are skating on the street, they could get hit by cars, or they can get tickets for trespassing.”
According to the Mid-City blog, a spirited group of about 40 kids showed up for a community meeting held at a local library to talk about some of the features they would like see at the new skate park. While design was important to the group there seemed to be a greater interest in having wider spaces that allow for anyone to enjoy the park.
The City Heights park will receive about $1.75 million, which will be used towards the new skate park. About $40,000 of those funds will come from the Tony Hawk Foundation. The project is scheduled to break ground in January 2016, and the new skate park is scheduled to open in the spring.
Learn why this skate park is important to the youth of City Heights by watching the video below.
Read more about this story here.
By The Numbers
33
percent
of Latinos live within walking distance (<1 mile) of a park
