Nyack Skateboarders Will Finally Have Their Spot
Joe Ondrek grew up skateboarding on Long Island. But since he moved to Nyack he and his children, who also skateboard would have to go into Manhattan or Connecticut. There aren’t many skateparks around. Together with Sarah Anderson, the leader of Nyack Needs A Skatepark group, he liked the idea of skate park to be built in Memorial Park. Since Nyack Village did not have the money to build the skatepark, the Nyack Needs a Skatepark group committed to raise all the funding, so no Village funding was required.
Group was able to raise money via private donations and various benefit events, like the concert of The Misfits that sold out in Nyack Village Center, or through the Tony Hawk Foundation, and finally the fund raising campaign was complete with the grant money from the state of New York.
Skateboarding is the third most popular sport among 8 to 18 year olds. There are close to 1000 skaters living in Nyack and those kids always have trouble finding places to skateboard without getting kicked out or ticketed. Those are just few reasons why Joe decided to get involved. So now that all of the funding is in place and final design for skatepark has been recently presented the construction of skatepark will soon commence and kids looking for a place to practice will finally have their spot.
Looking at the design; it’s got beautiful transitions and voluptuous shapes, a great design of a skateboard park that is forgiving to amateurs and great getaway to anyone who would love to spend their weekends at a state-of-the-art skate park.
Joe and Sarah’s story is very inspirational and it shows that any great endeavor establishment or transformation starts with an idea -all you need is the following and support of the people that want the same thing. The idea then becomes a movement and then a movement becomes the achievement. It’s a very powerful thing when something imperceptible and seemingly invisible becomes the real deal.
Stay tuned for more about Nyack Needs a Skatepark documentary. Next week I’ll have a blog about our interview with Sarah Anderson the founder of Nyack Needs a Skatepark group. And please give us a like on our facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/NyackNeedsASkateparkTheFilm
