A group of Cochrane skateboarders are hoping to turn their tricks into cash.
It sounds like the start of an indie flick. Ten skateboarders jump in a vehicle and drive down to the United States to film a movie to raise funds for a new skate park for the reservation. Except this isn’t fiction, it actually happened earlier this year.
Sam Stuart, owner and operator of Shredz skate shop, helped get a skate group together to start filming during a tour around North America – with the help of skateboarding brand sponsors. The idea was to create a fundraising film with the proceeds to go toward building a skate park in Morley for Stoney First Nation youth.
“Since the Cochrane skate park has been opened it has been really well utilized. It is busy every single day and we just want to help Morley get something like that,” Stuart said.
Stuart said he has been working with the Morley Skateboard Association in the past year trying to get the ball rolling. Association members have been struggling to find a location for the future skate park as there are three bands – Wesley, Chiniki and Bearspaw – governing Stoney Nakoda First Nation.
“We are still trying to figure out where the park will go and once that is settled then we can start planning more,” Stuart explained.
In the meantime, the skate group is hopeful the video project will help increase awareness and start collecting funds for the future skate park.
The skateboarding group is a mix of people from Cochrane, Calgary and the surrounding area, with one Australian friend. Stuart explained that the group usually does one big trip per year but this was the first time the friends ventured south of the border.
“It was really cool, we got to meet a ton of rad people and skate in some amazing parks,” said Stuart.
The skate group made life-long friends during the trip, Stuart said. There were some nights when the skaters would meet new people in the skate park and camp in their new friend’s yard for the night.
“The biggest point to go on the trips is to skate in new parks and to meet new people,” Stuart explained.
“We are still talking with some of the guys we met during the trip – it is a really close-knit community.”
While the skate group has another couple months of filming – they skaters refuse to park their boards until the “snow hits.” They have also been brainstorming when and where to premiere the movie. Organizers are hinting that the film might hit a theatre in Calgary with the hopes of raising more awareness and funds for the Morley skate park.
“Right now our skate team is at the best it has ever been at, if not the best in Alberta, and we also wanted to showcase that,” Stuart said.
Stuart said the skate team has done similar projects in the past, including the short documentary Jock Mentality, which premiered in Cochrane in December 2010. Organizers were fundraising throughout filming and sold the short movie for $5 to raise funds for the Alberta Cancer Society.
Organizers said they are planning a fundraiser for the fall, with more details to come.
