Skaters who kickfilp, ollie and grind at the Skate LB City Competition will also help a local Long Beach non-profit organization while they shred.
The upcoming event was organized by students in a Cal State Long Beach event planning class offered through the communications department on campus.
All proceeds from the skate competition will be donated to Action Sports Kids Foundation. Lawrence Johnson, a senior journalism major and communications minor, said the goal of the class is to organize an event that will benefit the community of Long Beach.
Action Sports Kids Foundation is a non-profit organization in Long Beach that is dedicated to providing alternatives to gangs for at-risk youth though the arts, education and sports, according to the foundation’s website.
“In one area, [ASK] set up a skate park, and in a matter of years [ASK] managed to reduce crime in the area by 29 percent, drug related incidents in the area by 61 percent.” Johnson said. “They are doing a lot for the community, but don’t have a lot of attention to their cause.”
He said that the group chose ASK because of its mission, which is designed to help the nearly 20,000 youth considered at-risk for crime, drugs and gangs in Long Beach.
“We encourage people of any age to compete, because there is a divisions for just about any one.” Johnson said. “If you are coordinated enough, and think you can be in the top three we are going to be giving away medals.”
ASK will provide judges from around the area, and Johnson said there are rumors about guest judges.
“To my knowledge they are going to bring people of high caliber skating nature to judge,” Johnson said. “I don’t know who but [ASK] got, but they got that stuff handled.”
Johnson said Tony Hawk has partnered with ASK before; he contributed to the skate park where the competition will be held.
The group organizer from the communications event planning class, Pearl Wang, contacted ASK Director Mike Donelon to pitch the idea of a benefit skate competition.
“She presented the event and that is essentially what you do [in the class] present the events and ditch the ones that [arn’t as good],” Johnson said. “Hers was just fantastic.”
The event was originally scheduled for Nov. 15, but Johnson said they couldn’t get funding for the insurance in time. He said the group continued to push to make sure they were able to get insurance for the event, which is now set to be held on Saturday.
“There are a lot of cool things going on to help the community from this class,” Johnson said. “It happens every semester – this class goes out into the community and sets out to do something [for Long Beach].”
The competition is free for the general public to attend, but there is a donation of $10 to ASK that is required from all competitors. Aside from the competition, there will be food and drinks for sale, as well as prizes, giveaways and music throughout the event.
Registration begins at 10 a.m. on Saturday at the McBride Skate Park in Long Beach, located on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd; at this time, participants will be placed in the appropriate division for the competition.