With the city onboard, David Colombe is looking to get a new and annual community event rolling in Salmon Arm.
Colombe was delighted to hear city council, at its June 23 meeting, voted to support his request to use the Skatepark at Blackburn park for Skatefest! Scheduled to take place on Sept. 6, Colombe described the event as a "youth-driven, community-centred celebration designed to bring vibrant, inclusive and engaging activity to Salmon Arm."
"This event is envisioned as the beginning of what we hope will become an annual tradition that empowers youth, promotes creative expression and encourages active lifestyles, as well as it fits nicely under the Small City, Big Ideas motto," wrote Colombe, explaining Skatefest! will be a family friendly daytime event with live music, "a curated collection of art, craft, food and skateboard-related vendors" and, of course, a skateboard competition, with age categories ranging from 8 to 30.
Launch! is working with the Shuswap Family Centre, the Shuswap District Arts Council and Ashes Skateboards and Snowboards on bringing Skatefest! to fruition. Colombe said his next step is finding other partners, sponsors, to help support the event.
In addition to being a youth advocate with Launch!, a Salmon Arm support program that works alongside youth to overcome barriers to employment, Colombe is also a father who enjoys spending time with his daughters at the skate park.
"In the last couple of years have been hanging out in the skate park more because my little girls wanted to learn how to scooter, and as a parent who is going to be hanging out there, I had the choice of sitting on the sidelines in a deck chair and staring at my phone or joining my kids," said Colombe. "So I bought myself a scooter and I scooter with my kids and we have a great time out there."
A contributing factor behind those great times, Colombe explained, is the skate park community, which has been a motivating factor behind Skatefest!
"The community there is really cool, where you have an understanding when you’re at the skate park – some of those barriers get really torn down and you’re just – everybody is a kid at the skate park," said Colombe. "If you ask one of the other kids 'hey, how do you do that trick,' they’re more than happy to show my kids. There’s really that sort of renegade sense of community there which is super cool and I love supporting that."
Colombe wants Skatefest! to become an annual event, one that could help the city build upon the park's offerings.
"Our park is cool, our park is great, but I would also like to, at some point in time, utilize this as a promotion to expand on the park, bring different pieces into the park…," said Colombe, interested in seeing if a pump track might be added just south of the skate park, which Colombe views as one of the city's key assets available for youth.
"It’s one of the few things that is available for our youth," said Colombe. "As a community, as a city… we are getting better with recognizing the need for youth activities, but we still fall shy of bigger towns or bigger areas, and a lot of it falls onto that skate park to be the thing for our youth to do.
"Salmon arm was a town that a lot of our youth left, a lot of kids finish high school and they go off somewhere else to work…I don’t think the kids are leaving anymore, I don’t think once you graduate high school the motive is to split, and to have more supportive infrastructure whether it’s jobs or recreation for our youth, would be great."
With Launch!, operating out of the Shuswap Family Centre, Columbe assist youth in finding work and employers in finding youth employees.
"We also recognize that road to employment has a lot of steps that people don't see, and some of those steps – we deal with a lot of social anxiety in our clients or skill-based barriers, so we help them out with that, or financial barriers… we assist our youth along the way there with the main goal being employment."
The Observer will provide further details about Skatefest! as they become available.
