Amid the array of tents that lined the edge of the cement at the 2025 Skate Jam, Courtney Wiik already pictured what the new park would look like.
“It’s gonna be a full concrete park, which is less maintenance, lasts longer than the current park we have now,” said Wiik, the Concord Skatepark Association’s treasurer. “There’s some concrete obstacles, but the asphalt cracks and gets weeds, and there’s wooden end sheet metal structures that weather and seasons aren’t very nice too.”
Like her fellow association members, she loves the park dearly but knows that it has fallen behind the times to other skate parks around the state.
Between food, resting under the shade and sweating it out on their boards, dozens of skaters displayed their moves this Saturday, which served as a fundraiser for a more modern park.
Jake Goudet traveled from Bellows Falls, Vt., after a friend shared the flyer with him on Instagram.
He said the biggest reasons for the trip were finding new people to skate with and to be part of a large skateboarding event. He only knew one person there, but he felt a link with everyone else.
“I know, one homie, but other than that, it’s all new faces,” Goudet said.
Despite the conditions of the existing park, Goudet shredded it up.
“The stuff skates really well,” he said. “I love the park, it’s awesome, it’s fun. Bunch of cool people.”
While new parks are popping up everywhere, finding a time and place to meet up with everyone is a difficult task, which made the Skate Jam perfect.
Hosting events at the skate park is one of the Concord Skatepark Association’s biggest assets, as they’re still a small group with a large fundraising goal ahead.
This won’t be the last event for the association, as it is already looking ahead to hosting live music and keeping its relationships with local businesses and community groups growing.
Fostering a community of skateboarders, like the one that many of the members grew up with in during the 90s and 2000s, is part of the association’s mission.
After all, what’s the point of getting a new park if there’s no one to skate on it?
