Barre Ramp Camp Blog

Grand Opening, Friday July 30

knozepicks — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 00:11:55 +0000

The opening ceremony for the Barre City Skate Park was an occasion of monumental proportions! Everyone from the Mayor of Barre, to City Parks and Rec Workers, to local shredders were in attendance. Anyone who happened to be passing by was immediately sucked into the vacuum of amazingness that was happening!!

The ceremony began with Parks and Rec Director, the unbelievable Stephanie Quaranta, giving a speech to the crowd about our campers and the project and just how proud she was of it (and rightly so). We then presented all the campers with an official certificate of completion of the Barre City Ramp Camp Program as well as some hard earned goodies! We even gave out a couple specialty counselor designed decks to some of our outstanding campers who went above and beyond the call of duty on a daily basis. Then our very own Alex and Mikey said a few words about the camp, the ribbon was cut and the part was on!!

Everyone got a good chance to check out all the Ramp Campers hard work, as well as let them show off some of their new skills!! I saw too much good shredding to give a play by play but I assure you everyone was KILLING IT!!!

The hot dogs were hot, the watermelon was watery, the beats were tasty (courtesy of WRUV 90.1′s own DJ John Moses) and everything was all good in the City of Granite. Even the Times Argus was there, you can check the story here: http://www.timesargus.com/article/20100731/NEWS02/707319947

All in all it was amazing. The campers deserve a world of credit for their dedication to the project, it is something that nobody will ever be able to take from them. Keep checking back, I hope to continue working on the Barre City Skate Park and I have a feeling Ramp Camp may continue just a little bit longer. As always, check the pics below and remember

skate or die

-JClick to view slideshow.

Secret Revealed…

knozepicks — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 17:18:30 +0000

So since the cats out of the bag I can put this post up. We wanted to reward our ramp campers for their extra hard work and really good attitudes this summer with a special gift. We had each camper design his or her dream skateboard, we bought some uncut blank decks and actually shaped every campers dream board for themselves!!

We had some truly unique designs including Alex’s rip skate, Sam’s goldfish deck, and Adriens Van Halen tribute skateboard! We even shape a few special boards for our outstanding campers!

Check the pics below and stay tuned for a recap of the grand opening of the Barre City Skate Park!

Click to view slideshow.

Final Days…

knozepicks — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 00:32:58 +0000

Hard to believe that ramp camp is almost over, this month has flown by! Today we put the finishing touches on the awesome new Barre City Skate Park, including painting the 3 low features as well as installing our signs!

Our campers continue to rip every day. It was great to see Connor, Mikey, Adrien, Jacob and Hamisi rolling around even after camp was over, I have a feeling this park is gonna get a whole lot of use!

Tomorrow is our opening ceremony, so if your free come on by for a bar-b-q, music, and skateboarding!! The event is open to all ages and all abilities, we want to share our hard work with anyone who wants to come and enjoy it.

It’s hard to put into words how proud I am of all of our campers, they have progressed as skaters and and as young intelligent, confident individuals. Fears have been conquered, obstacles have been ollied over, true team work has evolved. For anyone outside Barre looking for a way to engage youth in community development I urge you to look at our project and our success and try your own ramp camp.

We are currently looking for donors to fund more additions to our skate park, if you or your business would like to sponsor a part of the Barre City Skate Park please send an e-mail to josh.eichen@uvm.edu for more information.

Thanks to everyone who has followed this blog and supported our campers!!! Stay tuned for pics and details of our opening party tomorrow AND special project….

Skate or Die

-J

Ad Spoofs

knozepicks — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 11:25:31 +0000

The ramp campers have been working with the New Directions program based in Montpelier where they have been learning drug, alcohol, and tobacco resistance. They were asked to change a tobacco or alcohol ad from showing the product in a positive light to a negative, here is what they came up with.

-J

Skate Montage

knozepicks — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 22:20:26 +0000

Woohooo!! What a start to the week!! This last week at Ramp Camp has so far been the absolute best! We wrapped up construction today with the completion of the fun box and rail, so our park now consists of 7 features and all are ready to be shredded! It was a really awesome experience watching our campers wrap up the funbox entirely on their own, without any counselor help. I have to give a special mention to Connor, Adrien, and Mikey for all their hard work!

I also saw every single camper do or try something new today, that’s what I call progress!! I have to give the highlight reel play by play,

Hamisi – Rolling in on the bank, first try!!

Nick – Trying all sorts of new stuff on the ramps and rocking up onto the low manual pad

Jacob (glasses) – Too many new tricks to list, highlight today of rock to fakie on the quarter pipe to win himself the contest on that feature!!

Jakob – HUGE ollies all over the place, riding up and off every feature, rock to fakies all day on the launch ramp.

Connor – Again, too many tricks to name, switch rock to regular on the launch ramp, ollies nollies fakie ollies and switch ollies, popped pop shuvs, killing it!!!

Gabe – Manny the box, 360 burt slides, BLUNT to fakie on the launch ramp (WhAt!!?) half cabs, drop ins, killing it

Alex – Le Roi de le Rip Stick!! Making a believer out of me every day, getting high up on the quarter pipe, frontside slashes, stalls, manuals, you name it this ripsticker got it!!

Mikey – Super creative use of all the ramps, pumping up and around all features without pushin, serious style, popped pop shuvs, early grabs on the ramps, cannonball run on the box.

Adrien – The ultimate cruiser, rolling on the ramps, early grab nose AND tail grabs, making it all look too easy.

We also voted on what signs we will put up in the park, these signs will act as the voice of the ramp campers when they are not around, and that voice will be LOUD, as the campers have done an excellent job of painting some seriously colorful and creative sign boards.

Per request of Jacob I will post all the skate photos of today in the slideshow below and all the build photos in a seperate blog post. Keep checking back for more amazing action from the Granite City for the last week here at ramp camp!Click to view slideshow.

Skating For a Postive Change

knozepicks — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 21:48:07 +0000

Hey all, just wanted to drop in with a quick post about some other global organizations using skateboarding for a positive change. I encourage all ramp campers and family members to check out these non profs for a look at how skating is helping develop youth far and wide!

www.skateistan.org

Skateboarding program developed for the kids of Kabul, Afghanistan. Using skateboarding as a center for all sorts of education, social, and gender equity. Currently working on a documentary film, buy a t-shirt and support skateboarding in Afghanistan!

www.ugandaskateboardunion.wordpress.com

Giving the kids of Kampala Uganda a place to practice their skateboarding techniques. Much like the Barre Ramp Camp, these kids have built their skate park out of available resources and use it as a positive focus in their lives!

www.playgrounddesign.com

Multi purpose parks and smart design in NYC! Great organization that supports localized skate parks and spots for the cities skateboarders. Also do great work with green design, sustainability, and multi use space!

Check these sites out and get inspired!!

-J

Quick Thursday Post

knozepicks — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 11:43:59 +0000

Almost through another busy week at ramp camp. The park is shaping up nicely, the quarter pipe is now compete so that brings the Barre City Skate Park up to 6 skateable features!! Campers have been putting in work painting, building and skating harder than ever.

Today the campers went to the Barre City Library to put in some good community service, the more you put into your community the more they will give back to you!! Our skaters work daily on not only skate skills but life skills.

Next week we’ll complete the park with the construction of our big center piece, the fun box complete with flat down rail and 5 stairs. Everything should be done and ready to skate on Friday where we’ll be having our grand opening for all residents of Barre and beyond! Rumor has it that one state senator Bernie Sanders will be in attendance so be sure to mark your calendars!!

OK, this quick Thursday post turned out to be not so quick, so as always check the photos and keep checking back for updates from the granite city. Until next time

Shred On!

-J

Week Recap

knozepicks — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 16:32:37 +0000

Wow, so busy this week! The park is really coming together, our campers did a great job putting together the launch ramp and bank. Along with all the great building going on there has been tons of progressive skating, bar-b-q’s, and thinking of ways to define the new Barre city skate park! So many things to report but I’ll just give a list of some highlights.

Gabe absolutely killing the bank ramp with some old school powerslide to fakies!

Connor ollieing onto both the low AND high boxes!

Both Jacob and Jakob progressing immensly with some sweet boardslides and cannonball pops!

Hamisi, Adrien and Nick all getting there roll on!

Check the pics for all the great stuff going on here at ramp camp, and be on a lookout for us at the Bristol skate park Wednesday!! Until next time…

Shred On

-JClick to view slideshow.

Monday July 12, Barre City Park

knozepicks — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 01:38:59 +0000

Ahhh, love coming back on a beautiful Monday! Today we added 3 new features to our park! The city workers installed our grind rail via cement fixture (Thanks guys!), we built our grind box, and we now have a tent to keep us out of the hot sun! We warmed up on the basketball court while the city workers poured the cement, Gabe was ripping some mean old school slides, Mike was crusin under the hoop poles, and Adrian was showin off his cruisin skills!! The campers continue to progress daily as we practiced ollieing up onto the manual pad and worked on our shuv its, fakie ollies and general cruising techniques!

We then moved down to the park where we began work on the Grind Box, which is siilar to the manual pad just a little taller and skinnier. We got to work and had it together in no time! The tent actually proved to be more trouble than the box, but after some quick rotor action we had it up and we were stayin paid in the shade!

It was a great start to the week, check the pics for more details!!!Click to view slideshow.

Johnson Skate Park, Friday July 9th

knozepicks — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 01:27:24 +0000

What a day at the Johnson VT Skate Park!! Our ramp campers trucked up from Barre to check out another DIY park to get some ideas as well as see how sick an empty trailer lot can become with a little elbow grease. I could go on and on about how much the kids ripped or how good of a time everyone had, but that would take days!! All I’ll say is Johnson is awsome and stay tuned for a Johnson Skate Park video edit soon! If you want to catch the ramp campers out and about head to Bristol skate park Wednesday July 21! Until then keep shreddin!

-J