Hi Everybody, here’s a message from the man, the myth, the legend - John Jeffrey Huggins.
Thanks to your help, the Paul King Memorial Skate-A-Thon at the Andover Community Skate Park raised about $7,000 this past Saturday - You guys are awesome!!! - , Oct. 10. That brings our fundraising total to $68,000 as we work with local construction companies and businesses to figure out how to close the gap between the amount of money we have raised and the amount it will take to build the new concrete section.
Huge thanks to Paul King’s family: Norma King, Katherine Harris, Tricia Harris and the rest of the gang. They show up year after year to support the event and see why Paul loved the skate park so much.
Raising $7,000 for a skate park in one day is amazing. I want to commend all the kids who went door to door, passed out flyers downtown and convinced people to open their wallets. This includes Ian Whitney, James Perkins, Tim Gibson, Ian Adams, Ben and Sam Hatch, Jonathan Lincoln Vogel, Lorenzo Raponi and all the bros. You guys rule. Thank you to Conor Davidson for all the top notch graphic design and video work - we can continue to put your video to use. Thank you to Ross Shumway who did artwork on hats and shoes. Thank you to Craig Uggerholt who ran the street hockey tournament and endured a slap shot between the legs, and thank you to Matt Jaroche who showed up at 7 a.m. to help set up for the skate-a-thon and still managed to skate on the Zap Stix team in the shop contest. Thank you to Abby Granoff who shot photos.
We at the Andover Youth Services have the donors and hard-working skaters in mind as we work through all the kinks in signing the ramp builder’s contract and beginning construction.
Speaking of the Andover Youth Services, they deserve props more than anyone. - just doin what we do JJ, but thank you - There would be no skate park without Bill Fahey, Glenn Wilson, Tony Lombardi, Jamey Grieco and the rest of the staff. These guys work 25 hours a day, 8 days a week. Saturday should have been a day off for Bill, Glenn and Tony, as well as AYS staffers Afton Cuomo and Sobhan Namvar, but they all helped out at the skate-a-thon all day. Bill has an amazing way of nurturing people’s creativity and giving them tools to turn dreams into reality, even when it means an increase in his own massive workload. When we wanted a skate park, Bill led the charge to get one built. When we wanted to keep the park open for a 24-hour skate-a-thon, Bill made it happen. Now that we want to build a new concrete section, Bill is working with the appropriate people in town to do it. - Bill really is the man!! -
Most kids at the park don’t know what it’s like not to have the skate park, because the park has been open since 1998 - longer than most of them have been skating. But I remember. I used to try to learn grinds on a rock in front of my apartment building, skate a rickety quarter pipe made from a billboard found on the side of the highway and skate places where I spent more time fleeing security guards than landing tricks. Ever been summonsed to court for skateboarding? I have.
The average kid at the skate park progresses at least twice as fast as I did when I was growing up, and that’s because they have a place where they can practice all day on good terrain. But our wood ramps are not going to last forever, so we need to plan for future upgrades, hence the $68,000 that YOU have raised.
Hopefully our fundraising total from the skate-a-thon will increase as we sell the rest of the pumpkins and Paul King T-shirts. Both of which are available at the skate park until the end of the month. - shirts are actually available at the AYS office located at 37 Pearson St. in Andover -
Thank you to all the shops who entered our main event, the skate shop battle. These businesses provided us with the products that we gave away, so please check out their Web sites and remember them next time you need new gear. They are Eastern Boarder, Identity, NOTB, Zapstix (captained by our boy Phil Merrill), Next Generation and Boardwalk. The shop contest ended in a tie between Identity and NOTB. To break the tie, there was a one-on-one game of flat ground SKATE. The dude from NOTB secured victory with a switch hardflip. By the way, the Andover Community Skate Park’s own Alex Cole made the shop contest trophy – a gold chain with a skateboard deck attached. Thank you Alex!
Thank you to Pioneers, who has donated product for the Paul King Memorial Skate-A-Thon in the past and helped us with promotion this year. Speaking of Pioneers, it was great to see their pro rider, Dave Bachinsky of Lowell, show up unannounced Saturday. That kid is one heck of a skateboarder and a super nice dude. - Dave really is super nice, he spent a good portion of his day signing autographs for kids - thanks Dave!
Thank you to Converse, who last year gave us 100 pairs of shoes and $50,000 toward the construction of the new concrete section. We are blessed to have a major company in the skateboard industry in our backyard. Thank you to my beautiful girlfriend, Katrina, who works at Converse and this year, got us about a dozen pairs of shoes and an autographed Rune Glifberg (Converse team rider) complete board to give away. Thank you to The Eagle-Tribune newspaper (where I work) for donating the Bruins tickets that we raffled off and helping us big time with promotion of the skate-a-thon. I’m proud to work there. Thank you to the other businesses who hooked us up with prizes and food for the skate-a-thon. These include High Street Grill at 25 High St. in North Andover; Perfecto’s Cafe, which has locations at 79 N. Main St. in Andover, 1115 Osgood St. in North Andover and 1900 Main St. in Tewksbury; and All Star Pizza and Grill at 499 South Broadway in Lawrence. Thank you to Grease Not Gas and its founder, Mike Parziale, a godfather of the Andover Community Skate Park and one of the most creative and intelligent people I have ever met. www.greasenotgas.com
