Tony Hawk Foundation Interview

FirstStoke.com sits down with Miki Vuckovich from the Tony Hawk Foundation who talks about what they are up to and how they are trying to make a difference in the community by bringing public skateparks to your neighborhood.

What is the Tony Hawk Foundation’s biggest focus in 2008?

Since 2002 we’ve been assisting low-income communities to help them develop free, quality public skateparks. This year we’ll award our 400th financial grant to help pay for these parks. We always strive to do more in more places. So this year we will continue providing technical assistance and grants to communities, and find ways to partner with other groups like Skaters For Public Skateparks (SkatePark.org ) to achieve increased access to safe, sanctioned places to skate.

What is the foundation doing in addition to raising money to help finance public skateparks?

We consult with city leaders and parks officials on the proper way to plan and develop a skatepark. Most cities building parks are working on their first, so they often don’t understand the nuances of what makes a park good or bad, useable or unskateable. We try to help them make those distinctions so they can make the right choices for their communities.

What is it that makes the Tony Hawk Foundation unique?

We are the only national organization that provides skatepark consultation and financial grants to help communities build public skateparks. Tony understands the positive impact that a skatepark can have on a young person’s life, so he uses his media opportunities to talk about skateparks and why he’s dedicated so much of his time and resources to promoting this important cause.

How much involvement does Tony have with the foundation?

Our small staff of four carries out Tony’s vision for the Foundation on a day-to-day basis, but he’s very involved. We meet regularly, and Tony reviews our materials and personally goes through the skatepark diagrams submitted by each applicant. This last session included 74 communities. Each one is receiving Tony’s personal feedback about their projects.

What challenges does the foundation face moving forward?

While most city leaders have come around to the realization that a significant number of their local youth (about 1 in 6 in most places) skate, and that the fears of liability, noise, crime, and other myths are unfounded as regard skateparks, they are more accepting of the need. The issue then becomes how to fund the parks. Most cities have tight budgets, and $300,000 – 700,000 isn’t usually available to build the skatepark. That’s for a substantial concrete skatepark. But at any size, there is always a struggle to find the money. We can help with that, but cities need to be evermore resourceful in raising the money for their skateparks. Helping them do that is probably our greatest challenge.

How can the community get involved to help The Tony Hawk Foundation?

One way to assist us in the effort to develop more skateparks for at-risk youth is to donate, which you can also do at our Web site (TonyHawkFoundation.org). But the best way an individual can help the Tony Hawk Foundation realize Tony’s vision of greater access to free, quality public skateparks is to start a skatepark movement in your town. Use the information at TonyHawkFoundation.org and SkatePark.org to get started.