From tykes on scooters to a park ranger skating in his Nikes, the grand opening of a skatepark at Lagunitas Community School last Saturday entertained skate enthusiasts with music, food and even a few free skateboards. Several of the project’s organizers showed up for the joyous kickoff to the school year, which started on Wednesday with a revival of the skating elective taught by Adam Vurek, one of the park’s original advocates.
“I’m still a little bit in shock, but it’s a dream come true, man,” Mr. Vurek said as he got ready to drop in from the top of the ramp. “A lot of dreams turn into mist; this one turned into concrete.”
The park is the fruition of three students’ hard work on their eighth-grade Change Project, though its roots date back to 2017 when Mr. Vurek first held a skating elective on an empty blacktop space. Ian Andrews, Atticus Bliss-McHone and Dylan Grimmer took on the effort to build a skatepark. Their vision stood out to their teacher, Katherine Sanford, who helped them organize fundraisers and legitimize their cause.
The boys faced pushback from the school’s administration over insurance issues and disappointment when anticipated county funding fell through this spring. But the school board officially recognized their Valley Skate Club in 2021, and when a construction crew broke ground in June, what seemed like a dream began to take shape.
“I feel this park represents what Lagunitas School is,” Ms. Sanford said. “I feel like our school is about trying to meet the needs of our students. The valley’s going to be pumping out amazing skaters from here on out.”
Micah Arnold is a Woodacre resident and senior at Archie Williams High School who has volunteered with the project. “When we were students, we’d just be running through these halls on our boards, messing with people,” he said last Saturday. “If we had a park here, we’d be locked in, being productive in our own space. Now this allows kids to do what they want without impacting the school and the other students.”
Now juniors at Archie Williams, the three original organizers have largely given up skateboarding. But not Mr. Grimmer, who came to the grand opening with a fully customized board showing the battle scars of a true skater: stickers, a personalized grip-tape design and a deck marred by board slides. He remembers having to dedicate a full day to traveling to and from San Rafael or Bolinas to access a skatepark. He said the valley park was true to the design he and the club put together.
“I couldn’t be happier,” he said. “Especially once the halfpipe comes in, it’ll look just like the drawings.”
Mr. Grimmer and his friend Aidan Steig built the 4-foot-tall halfpipe during the pandemic and donated it to the park. It currently sits in pieces behind the concrete ramp, awaiting the volunteers who will finish the construction. The goal is to have it ready before winter.
The park is 80 feet by 30 feet with a ramp on either side, one with coping and the other with a slope. In the middle is a pump bump and a box that can be used for jumps and grinding. Surrounding the ramps on either side are piles of hay, so that for every spill or overshot, the rider will slide down the hill, hopefully unharmed. Since the park is located on school grounds—parallel to the gym on the lower campus—it will be inaccessible to the public while school is in session. Like the playground, it will only be open when the sun is up.
The total cost of the park was around $55,000. That amount was met with an $8,000 county grant, a few large private donations, several small donations and a gap-closing $10,000 donation from LEAP—the school’s parent-led nonprofit and the club’s fiscal agent. Marin County Parks will contribute to landscaping maintenance, an idea that was championed by the school’s late chief business officer, Jeff Lippstreu. Ms. Sanford said the skate club is in talks with the San Geronimo Valley Lions Club about installing a bench at the park that honors Mr. Lippstreu, who died last year.
Tim Musselman, a city parks worker from San Anselmo who helped with the construction of the ramp, rolled into last Saturday’s event with a box of skateboards to hand out to kids.
“I was looking to see who needed a board,” he said. “This is a community effort, years in the making. We wanted to put something in the valley so kids wouldn’t have to put their thumb out on Sir Francis Drake.”