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PUSH-ing for a Skate Parkby April Sutton 
Caleb Gonzalez Caleb Gonzalez fell in love with skateboarding at the tender age of 9, when his mom bought him his first skateboard from K-Mart. He spent most of his free time hitting the ramp in his hometown of San Juan, Puerto Rico with the older kids on the block attempting Ollies and Backside Grinds. After his discount store board split in two during his second week of breaking it in, his mom decided to invest in a board from a pro shop. "I still have the board, a Christian Hosoi's pro model," Gonzalez said. "He was one of the top pro vertical skateboarders in the 80s and I really looked up to him as a kid." Gonzalez, an Interdepartmental Program in Cellular and Molecular Biology graduate student at Baylor College of Medicine, said Hosoi's desire to help at-risk youth is what sparked his interest in building a skate park in Houston. After several of Houston's premium skate parks closed, Gonzalez's group, Public Use Skate Parks for Houston (PUSH) was created in order to raise awareness about the lack of skateboarding venues and to be an advocate for public skate parks. 
Ray Dunlap PUSH, along with the Houston Parks Board and the Houston Parks and Recreation Department, are putting their heads together to provide Houstonians with a state-of-the-art public skateboarding and in-line skating venue. "Houston has a number of at-risk youth organizations that use skateboarding to attract teens into their programs," said Gonzalez. "We want to build a safe place for them to practice so we can keep them off the streets." Youth Advocate (YA) Inc., one of such programs, is a nonprofit youth development organization that provides prevention and intervention services to young adults. "They've had their skateboarding program up and running for about five years, but all they have in their facility is a big empty room with a rail to do their jumps and slides, and a trash can for them to jump over," Gonzalez said. "The director of YA takes them around to different skate parks where they have to pay, so it's really not feasible for the program." Gonzalez said what's most important is that this park will allow groups like YA to take their skateboarding programs to another level by providing them with a facility to more efficiently operate their programs. Houston's Parks and Recreation Department has allocated 40,000 square feet of land at the intersection of Sabine Street and Memorial Drive to be home to the proposed Central Houston Skate Park. 
Ben Raybourn The proposed skate park will be large enough to accommodate 100 continuous skateboarders and will have various levels of terrain for everyone from novice skateboarders to professionals. There will be three sections to the park, the street course, flow course and transitional course. So far, $250,000 has been raised, but the total estimated cost is $1.8 million to get the project completed. "We still have a long way to go, but this is something that I truly believe in," Gonzalez said. "This skate park will make a difference not just for a few years, but for decades to come." Gonzalez said they need to raise all of the money before the building process can begin, a project he believes will take about six months to complete. "Cities like Ingleside, Austin, Dallas, Amarillo and Corpus Christi have already recognized the full potential of such facilities," Gonzalez said. "I believe that people can make a difference even in the simplest detail in our daily life, but to me this park represents a fertile ground by which we can help at-risk youth," Gonzalez said. For more information about PUSH, visit their website at www.pushhouston.com. |
Patient CareResearchTrekking Into New Territory: Translational Biology and Molecular Medicine Closing the Gap Between Lab and Clinic EducationTulane's Journey Back to New Orleans Community ServiceAlumni & DevelopmentCollege News
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Volume 2, Issue 2, Summer 2006 |
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