Girl Scout plans to build skateboarding park

The teen hopes to open
the Lawrence County
skateboard park in the spring.

By MARY GRZEBIENIAK

VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT

NEW CASTLE Pa. — A complaining customer in a downtown drugstore gave Kaitlin Fabich an idea.

She was in the former Eckerd drugstore next to the downtown YMCA about a year ago when another customer came in to complain about skateboarders in the alley.

Kaitlin, now 17, though not a skateboarder herself, knew the alley was a popular place for kids to pursue the sport.

During warm weather, they descend on business and school parking lots in the area, some of them even risking injury to climb the fence and skateboard in the long abandoned swimming pool at Cascade Park on East Washington Street.

As a result, “No skateboarding” signs are posted at many area businesses.

“I have friends who skateboard,” she said. “They get kicked out of places all the time.”

Though she understands why merchants don’t want skateboarders on their property, she says skaters are not troublemakers, only kids who want to pursue their sport.

The enterprising teenager set about doing something about it. And now, after a year of work, she is aiming to open Skate Village skateboard park this spring at Shenango Community Park off Pa. Route 65, Shenango Township.

Since that day in the drugstore, Kaitlin has come up with a plan for a fenced skateboard park with ramps and other equipment modeled after parks in Meadville and Chippewa.

A Girl Scout, she also went before a Gold Award Committee of the Girl Scouts of Beaver and Lawrence Counties and presented her idea. The committee allowed her to make establishing a skateboard park a Gold Award project.

The Gold Award, the highest award in Girl Scouting, requires 130 hours of work divided according to established guidelines.

Kaitlin also talked to Shenango Township supervisors, who agreed to donate land in Shenango Community Park off Pa. Route 65 for the project as well as assume liability once it is built.

Supervisors also agreed that if Kaitlin finds grants for the skatepark, the township will apply for them. In addition, Michael Schreck, the Shenango High School principal, agreed to assign the upkeep and maintenance of the skate park as senior community service projects in the future.

The project would be facilitated by the fact that high school students would be able to walk to the park from the school on a nature trail, which is currently being developed in an unrelated effort.

In addition, Kaitlin has developed a presentation and has started approaching local businesses asking for donations for the park. She also is researching grants which might be available for the park as well as contacting foundations.

So far, her efforts have paid off with business commitments to put in the sidewalk, provide crew to dig the foundation, donate gravel and sand, and provide cement — the biggest expense of the project — at cost.

But fundraising remains the biggest challenge. Kaitlin and a committee of about 20 seniors at Shenango High School have conducted several fundraisers to raise the $100,000 to $200,000 she estimates the project will cost.

These have included an ongoing sale of Skate Village T-shirts, which Kaitlin designed, and a new T-shirt design is in the works. They have also sold pizza cards and held a bowl-a-thon, a school dance, and carwashes. In addition, they are selling memorial bricks for a walkway that would lead to the park. More fundraising is planned.

Kaitlin said she hopes to have the park well-established by summer because she plans to attend Eastern Kentucky University and study psychology next fall with an eye toward becoming a high school guidance counselor.

She is the daughter of Melinda and Philip Fabich of Shenango Township.