I just read an article about a skatepark constructed by volunteers. It starts out sounding like a good thing. American Eagle donated $80K, no small chunk of change, to help it happen. 200 volunteers from the community showed up, including Dale. Birds, deer, and assorted wildlife frolic about.
But upon closer examination this isn’t the most positive scenario. Most of the volunteers aren’t skaters and don’t know anything about skateboarding. Then it gets worse.
“Township supervisors contracted with KaBOOM!, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit group that specializes in helping communities design, finance, and construct skate parks and playgrounds through a program called ESKAL8.”
KaBoom? As soon as I heard that name, I knew bad things were afoot. Not that I know anything about the company, but I didn’t need to read that they also specialized in “playgrounds” to know that this wasn’t going to be a skatepark on the level of a Skate Plaza.
What’s wrong with this picture?
1. Sad experience has taught us that non-skaters have almost no idea how to build skateparks. Even many skaters don’t know how to build skateparks the right way. Volunteers are great, but having a properly built skatepark is better.
2. KaBoom? The name alone lets you know these people don’t know how to build a good skatepark.
3. KaBoom “specializes in helping communities design, finance, and construct skate parks and playgrounds”. Skate parks and playgrounds? Do you see where this is going? This is like hiring someone who has built a miniature golf course to build a full-size one for a huge country club, or hiring Playschool to build you a car.
Take a gander at the KaBoom website and you’ll see what kind of company we’re talking about. Their whole approach is geared more towards “children” than skaters. “The power to change a child’s world” is their tagline, for goodness sakes. Man alive.
And here’s where KaBoom perpetuates a number of misunderstandings.
#2 - Who are skateboarders? “They are helpful and courteous to each other with a culture of taking turns.” Yeah right. Every time I go to a skatepark I end up running into little kids who never look around. Get some etiquette kids.
5 and 6 - “The athletes simply want to practice their sport. While parents, law enforcement and the entire community want a safe environment. A skatepark would do just that.” and “They are not intentionally destructive. They simply want a place to practice their sport. Since there is no specific location, existing public and private property is used. Since the property isn’t built for the wheels of skateboards and in-line skates, damage can result. Providing a safe and properly designed location prevents that.”
Theoretically, if enough good public skateparks were built, similar to the design of a Skate Plaza then maybe it would decrease damage to public property. But with all the lame parks being built it’s just increasing the problem. The bad parks basically breed a new generation of skateboarders who one day will realize how bad the parks are, and then they’ll be in the streets too. The only solution is to build good skateparks, and KaBoom ain’t the company to do it.
Pre-fab heaven?
I, unfortunately, was a part of the building of one of these skateparks. I had no idea going into it that it would be pre-fab crap. I still helped put it together (kind of had too, I work for AE). It’s unfortunate that companies like this are misleading local leaders who don’t know any better. They have a noble cause, but it seems so bottom line when you get down to it. Thanks for posting this.
What a joke man…..it’s sad….all these parks with great potential are stuck with the wrong people building them…..