One foot forward, one foot back. That’s what kids were told by Eliot Coutts at the Skate Jam on Sunday held at the Martha’s Vineyard Skate Park. The young skaters held onto the instructions tighter than their parents’ hands. Some found their balance right away, while others did not.
But ride or fall, everyone found a quarter-million dollar reason to smile. Earlier this spring the Martha’s Vineyard Skate Park received a $250,000 expansion grant from MV Youth. The Father’s Day event was a celebration of the future of the park, and the next generation of skateboarders.
Skate park association program director Eliot Coutts began the celebration with beginner lessons for children of all ages.
“Basically what we’re going to do here is teaching kids the basics of skateboarding,” said Mr. Coutts, a West Tisbury native who has been skating at the park for years. “We just got the grant of $250,000 to finish the park off and we’re here raising awareness that we’re going to have a world-class skate park in no time.”
A barbeque carried the celebration into the evening as older skaters took the stage, showing off more complicated moves for crowd. The festivities also offered free helmets to raise safety awareness.
The skate park association operates as a nonprofit and works with the town of Oak Bluffs, which owns the land, to administrate the park. The association cleans and maintains the parkland, and during summers offers drop-in clinics for skaters ages seven and older — Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Lisa Magnarelli-Magden said she frequently brings her three children to the skate park throughout the year.
“The beauty of the skate park is that we will come here and there will be big kids and little kids,” she said. “The big kids are respectful and help the little kids. It’s just a really nice atmosphere.”
The skate park association plans to complete the more underdeveloped zones of the park lingering from the original construction in 2003.
“We originally built this section of the park because we didn’t have the money to complete the whole park at once,” said Mr. Coutts. “We built these wooden ramps to fill up the space of the park.”
The wooden ramps are expensive to maintain, he added. The renovation will replace the wooden structures on the park’s perimeter with a long-lasting concrete design. Plans also include creating a five-foot horseshoe shaped half-pipe extending toward the Martha’s Vineyard YMCA, said skate park association president Erik Albert. The group also plans to add more stairs and rails at the front of the park without ruining its inclusive charm.
“We didn’t want a park that’s intimidating to the kids,” said former skate park association president Elaine Barse. “We also didn’t want a park that’s boring to the older guys.”
Construction on the skate park begins in October. The drop-in sessions begin on July 9 and continue through August 26.
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