Warkworth Teens Demand A New Skatepark

WARKWORTH — Warkworth is a great place to live if you’re a kid or a grown-up; but it’s something else if you’re a teenager.

“Warkworth’s boring,” said 14-year-old Keegan Coupland. “There’s nothing to do.”

Mattay Chabursky, 13, said the town is too small.

“It takes five minutes to walk around the town. Then what?” he asked.

The two boys are part of a group of teenagers who have one abiding interest in life — doing tricks on their skateboards, BMX bikes or inline skates.

But their passion has brought grief from village residents, who, it should be noted, are much older.

Now the teenagers have teamed up on a committee with a few adults to mobilize efforts to create a Warkworth skateboard park. The fledgling group has met twice. Campbellford has offered them the old steel and wooden skateboard ramps that it used until last year.

Work starts this summer on the first phase of Campbellford’s new $600,000 Kennedy Park complex, which includes a concrete skateboard park.

Bill Isaac, Warkworth’s first school principal, has taken on the task of steering committee chair for the project after tiring of “reactive, negative comments about kids on skateboards on Main Street.”

Mr. Isaac, who is Warkworth born and bred, said Campbellford’s ramp offering has inspired “hope among the teenagers”.

“I thought that someone has got to take this idea and run with it and I wanted to be proactive,” he said.

Mr. Isaac and Trent Hills Councillor Dean Peters invited skateboarders to participate since they formed the committee.

“We told the kids, ‘You’re probably wondering why a couple of old geezers are getting involved in this. Well it’s… for the benefit of the community,’” he said.

The teens’ parents have joined in the park’s planning process, as well.

“We really want the students’ input at these meetings because they know what they are looking and we have to rely on the kids,” said Elise Lewis, whose son Jason loves biking and skateboarding.

“It’s nice to see kids being active, especially when we see so much in the media about obesity in our kids today,” she said. “We’re not talking about vandalism with spray cans, this is just teens wanting to have some fun.”

But some local residents still treat the teenagers as a nuisance.

“The grown-ups start yelling at us,” Keegan said. “They threaten to call the cops. They tell us to go somewhere else.”

Last November the Warkworth Business Association ruled that the steps to the Warkworth Town Hall would be chained to prevent skateboarders from ollying and grinding over them, potentially causing damage.

While explaining the chains to the teenagers, Coun. Peters realized the kids had a good case to establish a permanent home for their sport.

“I was very heartened by the presence of eight young people, all skateboarders or BMX bikers, at the first meeting together with their parents,” he said.

The following teenagers have vied to make the park a reality: Keegan, Mattay, Michael Greenly, Jacob Allen, Jason Lewis, John Day, Josh Levesque and Vincent Hertzer.

Now the steering committee must identify potential village sites and form a fundraising campaign to take the project to the next level.

“The kids have said they’d like the site to be in the village or as close as possible to the village,” Mr. Isaac said. “Wherever it is, the kids need to be seen. The stunts… are pretty exciting and the more kids see them, the more will want to join in. “