Jen's history with skateboarding

My name is Jennifer Stewart and I am the president of the Clinton County Skatepark Association. I fell in love with the sport of skateboarding back in 1987. I was in the seventh grade and was the only girl skateboarder in the tri-state area. I had to join the boy scouts to be on the insurance to be able to skate the ramps at the one and only skateshop for miles around, "Ohio Surf and Skate" aka "Surf Ohio". Skateboarding gave me the opportunity to meet many skaters throughout the years. I met Tony Hawk at the Ohio State Fair, he signed my Surf Ohio t-shirt. Rob Dyrdek, Bill Danforth, Mike Hill, and several others from the G&S Team would come to my house to skate on my halfpipe. I was very fortunate growing up. I had a very creative dad and a very tolerant mother. They both knew the importance of teaching us how to have fun without the use of drugs and alcohol. My backyard consisted of a 6' half pipe that quickly grew into a 6' spine with a 3' hump. There were also 4' and 7' extensions. My treehouse slept 2 comfortably, had a "Tarzan Rope", a swinging bridge, and a zip line. The treehouse occupied 3 separate trees and the zip line stopped at the skateboard ramp. We also had a trampoline that connected to the deck around our swimming pool. We would always have kids at the house. My backyard WAS the skatepark of southern Ohio. We would have youth groups come to our house. There were always people at our house even when we weren't home. Then in the 90's skateboarding took a dive. No one was skateboarding. I started college in 1992, and when I came home my dad had torn down my ramp. I was devastated. Then in 1993, my sister was diagnosis with non-hodgkins Lymphoma at age 23. Then in 1996, My childhood home burnt to the ground. In 2001, I was diagnosed with Thyroid Cancer at the age of 27. In 2006, I was sitting in my garage with a few of my friends on a beautiful sunny summer day and it came to me to start the Clinton County Skatepark Association and give my community something that was so beneficial, so awesome, so incredible for me as a youth. I am so passionate about this cause. You are only young once. Life is so unpredictable, it can be SO good, but it can also be SO bad. Skateboarding is incredible exercise, and it takes incredible skill to be able to do it.

Hollidazzle parade

The Clinton County Skatepark Association did it again. We all joined together to put on an interesting display for the illuminated parade. The Guinness Book 2009 2010 World's Largest Skateboard was all lit up for a "Disco Christmas" with illuminated Skaters skitching along with the giant board. We couldn't help but to humor the Wilmington PD a little by pulling the Giant Skateboard with the Durango with a Police beaken. Ironically, the police didn't find any humor in the display and wouldn't even wave to us. We all had a great time. We got two really awesome "shout outs" during the parade over loud speakers about how we should all work together to help get these kids a professional skatepark. It was awesome. Then we made a wrong turn and made our own parade "the Giant Rogue Skateboard parade". I was very proud of all skaters for making the best of a bad situation. Everyone pulled together, stopped blaming one another for the mishap, and started directing traffic with their illuminated skateboards. We all got the giant skateboard through the tiny, traffic jammed side street without any harm to the skateboard or any other parked cars or moving passing cars. Even though we had a few who wanted to abandoned ship we all pulled together and accomplished an awesome task.....Kudos to all who were there.

TIME OF NEED

We are all in a time of need or is it a time of greed? Do we all feel like we deserve a bail out? Do we all want to jump on the band wagon when there is a hand out? Who really decides who is the worst off? It all really depends on how creative you can become. When you sit, reflect, and meditate on your inner magical powers, or the powers to be, or Jesus Christ, or whatever you want to call it, you would be amazed what can come of it. I have been living in poverty since 2001 when I had to file for bankruptcy because I had cancer and couldn't work because I was so sick and became chronically ill due to a medical mishap. Then in 2004 I gave birth to my beautiful son and together we live without insurance due to a preexisting condition. Every month I choose which bills to pay, but thank God I'm a small business owner because I get to eat everyday at my place of business. If you go to my house you can open my fridge and gaze at my wonderful condiment selection that never seems to go anywhere. Credit card companies are taking away our available credit and raising our rates for no good reason. It is becoming harder and harder to continue running our small businesses across America. Out of all this adversity, there are many things I could be begging for. The one thing I beg for daily is for my higher power to love me unconditionally, to continue to propel me forward, and to continue to give me opportunity. Through all this in 2006 a vision came to me to start the Clinton County Skatepark Association to help better my community. To give the kids of my community something to believe in, something to do free of charge, and a passion for exercise. Times are tough, especially as you get older, why not give our kids the time of their lives while we can! If we began to address the needs of our children in our community then we wouldn't have a lot of the problems we have today. The Clinton County Skatepark Association pays no salaries. This is a true non-profit organization truly for the kids! please be aware of where your money goes when you donate to an organization. Are you giving money to actually help your community or are you just paying someone's salary to be there acting like they are helping the community? If you would like to make a donation to our organization you can go to Clintoncountyskateparkassociation.org and use paypal or you can mail a check to National Bank and Trust at 48 N. South Street Wilmington Ohio 45177. Make checks out to the CCSA (Clinton County Skatepark Association) / Sargent Steven Daniel Conover Endowment Fund in care of the Clinton County Foundation

Vultures

Today I saw the most disturbing thing. As we all know Rachel Ray is re-building the kitchen at Joe's Java. Today they put out all the old stuff like chairs, tables and all sorts of things on the sidewalk for a free for all that anyone can grab. Jen, from Jen's deli and I then went down to Java Joe's to see if we maybe able to get somethings for the yard sale. When we finally got down there so many people were grabbing anything they could, but where they going to use it for their home? No I saw several of them ripping off the metal legs of nice tables and throwing them in the back of their trucks to take to the scrap yard for MONEY! I know that the Rachel Ray organization is trying to do a good thing but I thought they should try to help as many people as you possible. Our local youth after school program has shut down temporarily, the CCSA donations are down, and what about the homeless shelter? They could have contacted us or other non profits so that some organization could have used these items a whole lot better than the the fools ruining perfectly good things so they can get a few scrap bucks. What is this world coming to? When I tried to speak to someone in charge at Java Joe's they closed the door. We all are suppose to be in this for the youth in our community, they I guess have been forgotten and priority has been given to scrap metal collectors. Is it truly better to put cash in someones pocket or to help our community? More effort should have been taken to make good use of good items! This has become more wasteful spending......


Treasurer- Peter

First Friday CCSA Blog

What an interesting week this has been. Rachael Ray and Nick Lachey are in town. Nick Lachey ate at Jen's Deli on Wednesday October 28, 2009. Nick autographed the Clinton County Skatepark Association conceptual design photo.
We ( The Clinton County Skatepark Association) have mailed in our grant information to the Tony Hawk Foundation in hopes of receiving an early Christmas present for our organization. In the meantime, we are continuing to do something everyday to get closer to our goal of having an awesome concrete skatepark for our community.
For those of you who don't know....we are "THE DHL TOWN" Dhl shipping company employeed 10,000 people in Wilmington, Ohio. Wilmington's population is 11,000. On August 31, 2009 they decided to leave Wilmington to move back to CVG (Greater Cincinnati Airport). They left 10,000 people without jobs.

where is David Arquette?

Did you know that David Arquette was in a movie about Christian Hosoi? If you haven't seen "Rising Son" you need to stop, get that movie, and watch it with no interruptions. This movie could quite possibly change your life forever.Especially, If you were a skater in the 80's! I would love nothing more than for Christian Hosoi and Tony Hawk to come and open our park for us in Wilmington Ohio.