With skate parks popping up around the metro, the city of Lindsay is establishing one of its own.
"The idea started one Sunday when there weren't many people in my Sunday school class," Lisa Burch said. "We didn't have a lesson, so we were just drinking coffee and talking. I'd asked if they'd seen the skateboarders out that morning and said it was a shame they have nowhere to go to skate."
PLANNING PROCESS
The small group's members began researching and raising funds, despite not even having kids of their own that skated. They invited the town's handful of skaters to planning meetings.
They'd received a check from the Tony Hawk Foundation, as well as a note from Hawk himself giving them ideas on how to make the most of their money.
"These kids came to the meeting and were so excited that someone was giving them credit. They get stereotyped and it's hard for them to overcome that," Burch said. "When we were frustrated by talking to people who didn't want the park, some of the older people who didn't understand skateboarding, we'd meet with the kids and it just kept us going. They were the most grateful kids I've been around."
The town agreed to give them land where a tennis court had been; Burch said plans are to open the $59,300 skate park in July. "Charles Martin
