By Scott Taylor,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – A planned downtown skate park got a $10,000 boost from professional skater Tony Hawk’s charitable foundation.

The grant put the Skate Lewiston-Auburn Movement about $40,000 short of its $230,000 goal.

“And $40,000 is very achievable, we think,” said Pat Butler, fundraising chairman for the effort. The group is hoping to send a request for donations to area businesses later this month. Work on the skate park – a concrete bowl with ramps, jumps and street-like obstacles for skateboarders and inline skaters – is set to begin this spring.

The group of skaters, their parents and local business owners began meeting last year to discuss building the skate park. The group has the city’s approval to build the 12,000-square-foot skating attraction in the northwest corner of Kennedy Park, near the Pine and Park streets intersection.

The Tony Hawk Foundation agreed to award the effort $10,000 – one of the three highest awards it announced this week. Butler said the Lewiston park’s proximity to Auburn, its downtown location and the SLAM group’s preparations all helped.

“They said that most applications come to them at the beginning of the planning process,” Butler said. “People haven’t started doing anything, they just want money. But ours was different, and they said it was good that we talked to them near the end of the process.”

The foundation even suggested organizers make some physical changes to their plans.

“They said we should make one of the ramps steeper, to give it a better ride,” Butler said. “They actually took the time to go over our plans, so that’s nice.”

Copy the Story Link