The Jackalope international skateboarding competition wrapped up Sunday at Olympic Park with skateboarders from all over the showing off on two ramps.
In the midst of all the excitement was a local woman who is trying to use the sport to break the cycle of poverty in disadvantaged communities.
Betty Esperanza said Skateboards for Hope started when she took her two sons to Cuba for a family vacation
They had brought skateboards and the locals were entranced.
“There was one kid who was watching me intensely. I asked him if he wanted to learn,” she said. “He was so good I decided to leave [my skateboard] with him but I made him promise he share it with his friends and the following year I brought ten boards, and that's how it started.”
The idea is simple – collect used skateboards, longboards and equipment and redistribute it to communities in need.
After eight years of sending skateboards to Cuba, Esperanza was approached by the Kanesatake First Nation reserve to start a local project.
Justin Darrow is the First Nations ambassador for the group. He said skateboarding taught him things he hadn't learned anywhere else.
“You learn about resilience through skating, through pain, never giving up until you succeed and there's a certain achievement you feel and accomplishment you feel when you finally do succeed even if it's 1000 tries,” he said.
Darrow is the first competitor at Jackalope from a First Nations reserve, something he is proud of and something he hopes will show other young people on the reserve that anything can be possible.
“Native reserves don't have a lot of money for recreation. They have to split up where funds go and so there's not a lot of kids that skateboard because they don't have access to it,” he said.
Ultimately, Esperanza wants to expand the group to more places across Canada, and the world,” to encourage kids to get off the streets, maybe not do drugs, get into trouble but to actually work together as a community.”
As she put it, the more obstacles a young person is able to overcome, the more confident they end up being in their own abilities and in their power to change their communities.
