Don’t Forget Our Skateboarders

To the Editor:

Recently I found another inspiration related to skate boarders. I asked, “What does every living thing do every day? We ‘occupy’ ourselves.” Skaters around town are doing what everyone else does — occupying their time doing what they love. However, most people see a nuisance.

Is it their fault there’s no place to skate? Why are people so offended by these kids that are occupying themselves with a positive choice of entertainment and exercise? Since they have no place to go like most athletes, skaters try to find places and in doing so have to contend with obstacles like constantly getting kicked out. They literally need to fight to do what they like to do.

So all day, mostly in the summer they go from place to place as they put up with being treated harshly. Many towns have given skateboarders a park  to call their own. Look on the Internet and see how many towns have one. These towns know the logic in providing skaters with a skate park. Newtown, as affluent as it is, has the land and resources to create a skate park as well as many other leisure recreational sites, to help our youth with healthy forms of entertainment and yet this problem continues. But, Donate To Skate will not ignore our skateboarders and will continually work toward fulfilling our promise to them that they will someday have a skate park to call their own.

Yes it is an extreme sport, but without a park skaters are going to unsafe places to enjoy themselves — you fill in the blanks. The odds are great that we may have a casualty one day because we didn’t do our job as a community to help these kids. It happens all the time. It’s discouraging that so many people know about our efforts to construct a skate park. We have asked and begged for businesses and residents to give any amount of money towards this cause and so many haven’t.

We have promoted our effort relentlessly. For all our efforts  and awareness we have tried to raise we should have been able to give our skaters a park by now. For those that have made a donation, we thank you. For those who haven’t, I ask you to please do so for the safety of our children. Go to DonateToSkate.com.

Sincerely,

Lori Capozzielo

123 Toddy Hill Road, Sandy Hook                          January 27, 2009