Starkville Parks and Recreation and The O’Nan Project for Change are working together to build a skate park to serve local teens and Mississippi State University student skateboarders.
Meagan O’Nan, founder of The O’Nan Project for Change, said her group will be working with Starkville Parks and Recreation to hopefully build the skate park.
“This is going to be a process and we are in the very beginning stages,” O’Nan said. “We have been learning a lot as we go.”
Clare Mallory, one of four board members of The O’Nan Project for Change, said the non-profit organization is an empowerment program for teens.
“Last year was our pilot year,” Mallory said. “None of our other projects have been of quite this magnitude.”
Mallory said the project started in Colorado but is now focusing on Starkville.
O’Nan said her group will be applying for a Tony Hawk Grant of $25,000 in October to help finance the park. The project will know if it will receive the grant by December.
“We think we have a really good chance of getting the Tony Hawk Grant,” O’Nan said. “A lot of the funding is going to have to come from the local community though.”
Mississippi currently has around 12 skate parks, O’Nan said, a fact that will hopefully give her proposed park extra attention while applying for the Tony Hawk Grant.
O’Nan said while the project has not yet settled on a park design, it will soon be forming an advisory committee of local teens to start deciding what features the park should include.
“One of the more basic designs we were looking at, with seven obstacles, costs around $44,000,” O’Nan said. “The park in Oxford cost $350,000 to build, but kids there raised over $100,000 of that.”
Receiving the Tony Hawk Grant would set restrictions on the materials that could be used in the park, O’Nan said.
Matthew Rye, director of Starkville Parks and Recreation, said George Evans Park near McAllister’s Deli is being considered as a possible location for the skate park.
“There are already concrete slabs at George Evans,” Rye said. “We are looking at possibly using one of the slabs that’s about the size of a basketball court.”
Rye said the park would be free to access and would have posted hours of operation.
“Our understanding is that skaters usually police themselves pretty well,” Rye said.
O’Nan said most of the injuries that result from skateboarding come from using home made ramps or skating in unsafe areas.
“Skateboarders actually have a lower injury ratio than football, baseball or soccer players,” O’Nan said. “Having a park that is under proper surveillance with well-constructed obstacles can reduce injuries even more.”
Skateboarders present at the meeting said not having a skate park leads them to do most of their skating on the MSU campus.
Rye said it is uncertain as of now if the park will exclusively serve skateboarders or if it will also be open to in-line skaters and BMX riders.
“The flow of the park can be different depending on what kind of riders it is set up for,” Rye said. “Obstacles set up for skaters might not be well placed for someone on a bike.”
O’Nan said the project would begin forming committees of around seven people immediately and the committees will probably meet once a month.
“There is no doubt that we can make this happen,” O’Nan said. “It’s going to take all of us working together though.”
O’Nan said her group hopes to build confidence in the local youth population.
“Skateboarding is the nation’s fastest growing recreational activity,” O’Nan said. “We think skateboarding youth are often not well enough represented.”