Follow Those Skateboarders!

If there is any group of kids in town with a reason to be feeling a bit down, it is Newtown’s skateboarders. Aside from being hounded from public parking lots for years, like Fagin’s street urchins, their efforts to get a very little piece of Fairfield Hills where they could practice their sport suffered a blow this spring when $25,000 in initial funding for a skateboard park there was eliminated from the town budget. And to add insult to this injury, their first big fundraising event last weekend –– an outdoor townwide tag sale / food fest / kid’s carnival / battle of the bands / skateboard demonstration at Newtown High School –– was inundated by a hard-driving rain. Despite all of this, we have seldom seen a more upbeat, enthusiastic group of kids.

Skateboarders have a reputation of being a little edgy, grinding their boards up against the sensibilities of Newtown’s more staid citizens and occasionally the trespassing laws. But of all the groups feeling aggrieved by budget cuts this year –– and there are lots of them –– the skateboarders and their parents in the Newtown Skate Park Association have done the least complaining and the most planning to make up the shortfall. Their sport is all about facing challenges, sailing over barriers, and taking on the impossible. Somehow, by sheer force of their determination and enthusiasm, they brightened up an otherwise miserable Saturday.

Teaming up with the NHS Peer Leadership Team, which had been planning a fundraiser in support of Newtown Youth Services programs, the skateboarders and their parents kept spirits high on a sodden day with activities indoors and out. The nonstop skateboard demonstrations in the high school parking lot were particularly inspiring. They involved dozens of kids at every skill level skating through a driving rain and water hazards –– and they were having lots of fun! The event wrung nearly $3,000 from a cold and rainy day, which the skateboarders will split with Newtown Youth Services. Many more fundraisers are planned.

In this day and age, we all can find reasons to feel sorry for ourselves. Life isn’t fair, especially in tough economic times. Lots of people aren’t getting the breaks they deserve. We are all looking for a way over, around, or through the challenge of doing more with less. From what we have seen of them lately, the kids on skateboards look like pretty good guides for the rest of us. Follow them, if you can. Better yet, write a check, small or large, payable to Newtown Skate Park Fund, and send it or drop it off at Newtown Youth Services, 41-A Main Street, Newtown CT 06470.