PARIS – Now that the grueling first phase of raising money to build a classy skateboard park is done – with the results seemingly well-appreciated by skaters here – some diehards are looking ahead to phase two.
Dave Bean, who teaches at Gould Academy and has been supportive of the Oxford Hills Skate Park project, said another $80,000 is needed to build a second bowl edged with banks at odd angles, like a high-tech street course.
The first bowl, ramp and banks were completed this spring after five years of raising money. The final amount gathered was $117,000, coming mostly from local donations and grants.
Bean said, though, that with donated materials and labor, the real cost of the park is closer to $225,000.
The original dreamers behind the park, two local high schoolers who have since graduated, pushed for much of the funds. Now, without Greg Hutchinson and Bentley Hamilton around, the onus of collecting cash falls on other young skateboarders.
“It is a matter of getting teenagers who live and skate there to step up,” Bean said. “You’re in the skate park, and say, Dude, you should really get to work on that,’ and they’re like, Huh?’ It’s really up to people who have been motivated as Greg and Bentley have been. They just have to step forward.”
At the skate park Monday afternoon, the kids there said they would do what they had to to expand the park, especially if it had more street stuff, like rails and steps.
“This one is plenty big,” Colin Cassano, 15, said, looking at the new bowl. “We need more street. Only the really good kids ride the bowl.”
“Hell yeah,” Bobby Kramer, 15, said, when asked if he would chip in with fundraising. Then he pointed to Juan Restrepo as a likely organizer. “Let him do it. You’re the only one who’s responsible.”
Restrepo, 15, said, “I could come up with that,” the $80,000 or so needed. “Some hard work,” he added.
The second part of the park would increase the size of the skating area on Charles Street, now 7,000 square feet, by another 3,000 to 4,000 feet.
Bean said only $500 of the $80,000 has been raised for the “last part of the dream and vision to unfold.”
“When I got into this, I wasn’t sure the skate park would be built,” Bean said. “I am certain it can get done. It will be a lot of people coming together to do it.”
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