By: Maria Moore

As Wendy Penn tells it, after a baseball game she approached Mike Seaman and Seth Pierce, teenage friends of her son’s, to try to recruit them for a triathlon.  They agreed to do it - but only if she would then help them to get a skatepark here in town.  

They showed up for the triathlon, won it, and then asked: “When’s the first skatepark meeting, Mrs. Penn?” 

Wendy met with the Mike and Seth and Ben Sage and her own three children, Josh, Nikki and Zack, and she explained to them the long process they would have to go through to get the town’s approval for their park, and then the fundraising they’d have to do to raise the money to build the park.  She told them the skatepark would most probably not be finished in time for them to use it before they went off to college.  Undeterred, the teens formed the New Hartford Skatepark Committee, joined by the Switzgable, Parrott, Hawkins, and Pobuda families, and they were on their way.

That was in the summer of 2005 and now, almost 4 years later, the group is within a few “flips” [the most simple of tricks, or maneuvers on a skateboard] of having their SK8 park. How did they manage this “ollie impossible” [almost impossible trick, or maneuver on a skateboard]?  Read on and be ready to be wowed by their skilful “landing” (successful completion of a trick or a maneuver on a skateboard).  Leaving skateboarding language to the kids, here’s how they did it.

First they collected 6 pages of signatures of town residents in support of building a skatepark in New Hartford. Then they collected letters of support from local business owners, their teachers at Regional # 7, Resident State Trooper Dan Janco, and many others. And then, armed with those materials, it was time for them to make their case to the Board of Selectmen. “The kids made the presentations themselves,” Wendy said. “They prepped for hours.” The kids made their presentation and won the selectmen’s approval, as they did the Recreation Commission’s.

The group traveled to Rampage, a skatepark company in Bridgeport and the kids got to design their own skatepark. Ron Dufour did the surveying and topography maps and Gary Reola of Pustola & Associates took the CAD drawing, superimposed it on the topography map and produced a site plan. That is what they presented to the Planning and Zoning Commission which also gave their preliminary approval.

The complete park that the kids had designed costs $70,000 but they will construct phase one this year for a cost of $50,000. “The rest of the park can be added at a later time,” Wendy said.  The kids have held fundraisers of all kinds to raise the $50,000 and they’re almost there.

“Local businesses have been great!” Wendy said, listing off major contributors: Dunkin’ Donuts has contributed $10,000, and Ski Sundown has contributed $8,000 from two of their Brew Fests.  Wendy also specifically mentioned  the Community Foundation of Northwest CT which contributed $2,000 toward the park, and New Hartford Community Connections which has contributed $2,000 over two years to the park.  

The kids are just $8,000 short of the $50,000 they need, and they have two fundraisers coming up in May: a Music Concert on May 2 (see the poster below) and a Dodge Ball event on May 15.

Our reporter wanted to know why they had chosen to locate the SK8 park within a short distance of the children’s playground. “Why not locate it there?” Wendy had then gone on to say that some people in town didn’t want the kids up there because they didn’t want their kids to associate with the SK8 kids. “My kids are good kids, and the kids they hang out with are good kids!” Wendy said.  And it will be really nice for the families to have both their young kids and their older ones playing in the same area, she added. 

As Wendy had told them in their first meeting, the kids will be finishing high school this summer and going off to college, just as the SK8 park is slated to be built. But the kids don’t seem to mind. “This has taught the kids a lot,” Wendy said. “I’d told them ‘I don’t care what you’re doing, I want you to be respectful and responsible. Every time you go out there you’re representing us all. I don’t want you to do something that reflects badly on us.’ ” And the kids have taken her words to heart, never getting into trouble in the time since then. “I’ve learned a lot too,” Wendy said, speaking proudly of the kids and their achievements.

And our community as a whole can be proud of this group of teenagers, who have volunteered so much of their time and effort to make sure that New Hartford will have a safe, well-designed SK8 park for future teens to call their own.

Editor’s Note: Kids, will you be holding a “teach-in” for the teenagers at heart among us who’ve now added “Gotta get up on a skateboard” to our list of stuff to do before we die? If so, please add our editor’s name, Maria Moore to that list, right behind Linda Sheffield, New Hartford’s Tax Collector who thinks nothing of jumping out of planes.  And wouldn’t you just love to see some of our town elders do a flip or two?  Maybe you could even make some money from us!…

Skateboarding is truly a global sport with its own unique vocabulary.  Please see the Skateboarding Vocabulary published in a research paper in Victoria, New Zealand in which the students describe, with illustrations, basic skateboarding terms such as “ollie,” “flips,” and many more.

The photo in the scrolling feature article bar is taken from the web and shows a teen skateboarding. The first photo in the article shows Wendy Penn at the Opening Day ceremony for New Hartford Youth Sports on April 25. The second photo shows the great group of teens who after 4 years, will soon have a SK8 park of their own. The CAD drawing shows Phase 1 of the SK8 park slated for construction later this year. The last image is the poster for the music festival the SK8 group are holding as a fundraiser this coming Saturday, May 2. What are you doing this Saturday? Please plan to attend this music festival and help these great kids reach their goal!

Many Thanks to Joan Auclair for her skilful editing of this article which almost matches the skill of these kids on their skateboards - high praise indeed!

The SK8 Park group would like to give a special Thanks to their many  Sponsors listed below: