A year after Hopkinton residents launched a grassroots campaign to save the town’s beloved skate park, community fundraising has made progress toward bringing it back to life.
Loren Clement, who’s been leading the charge, said it’s “extremely important” not to let Hopkinton’s Spirit Skate Park fade away.
For Clement, revitalizing the park is personal: His 10-year-old son spends hours there skating, learning new tricks and hanging out with friends.
“Not everyone is interested in playing team sports, and this is a place where they can gather and blow off some steam, and it is certainly not in front of a screen,” said Clement. “It’s all around a fantastic outlet for the kids in the community, and there are adults that come and ride as well.”
The park, built in 2003 in memory of Bob Carr, 18, and his friend Jake Shumway, 20, sits beside Hopkinton Middle High School.
Over the years, though, the park has fallen into serious disrepair. Ramps chipped, screws came loose and some sections were removed altogether for safety reasons.
Last year, when it became clear that repairing the park with taxpayer dollars would be too costly, a group of residents stepped up. The most affordable designs proposed by a skate park company were estimated to cost around $200,000. The select board suggested launching fundraising efforts.
“We’re trying to do this as a community effort and not add it to a tax burden on the town,” Clement said.
So far, the group has raised more than $5,000 — enough to purchase 23 sheets of the professional-grade riding surface used by skaters. They’ve also officially registered as a nonprofit organization to help streamline donations and future grants.
In 2015, the skate park was forced to close due to safety concerns, but thanks to community fundraising efforts, it reopened the following year after much-needed repairs.
Clement said that for the next phase of improvements, he hopes to bring back the park’s original design, which featured more smaller ramps. No price estimate has been set yet.
Throughout it all, community members have continued to pitch in, handling ongoing maintenance tasks, like tightening loose screws, inspecting the ramps and making other small repairs, all while being careful not to disrupt the skating surface for those who use it daily.
“There’s been an outpouring of interest in supporting the skate park in different ways, whether it’s monetarily or people rolling up their sleeves and actually coming in and doing the work,” Clement said. “We meet all sorts of people from just our community and neighboring towns who want to see the park saved.”