PFSP Grand Opening 2016

On Friday Sept 9th Portage came out to celebrate the Grand Opening of the first portion of the first professionally designed skatepark in the city. The drum roll began at six in the afternoon led by Stacey Bartosch of Deforest Cardio Drummers, keeping peoples pulses high as people gathered for the evenings festivities. There were many introductions made over pizzas and refreshments catered by our local Pizza Hut.
The park was full of kids parents and many prominent members of the community. This environment is just what the Portage Family Skatepark Project had in mind when the work towards raising funds started nearly 4 years earlier.

This park is where we hope to foster stronger families and a more connected community.
Around 6:30 everybody gathered for several announcements from Jared, Kyle, and Portage’s Mayor Dodd. This grand opening marked the day the park was officially open. The Portage Family Skatepark Project received gratitude from the mayor for our work to help build this addition to the Goodyear Park. Everyone present seemed to be in agreement that this was something much needed in our community. We also reminded those gathered that The park is not complete yet. There is a much larger park already designed and waiting for funds to be a reality. The excitement and interest in the park, and in having a larger park was instantly apparent by the faces of the kids all gathered to skate all afternoon.

Afterwards everyone gathered round for a picture of the ribbon cutting, marking the official opening of the park. Then quickly Kyle was graciously allowed to do a solo ride to celebrate the accomplishment of this dream. He quickly turned it over to semi pro riders from Elements boardshop Wisconsin Dells to show off their best tricks for the kids and the crowd. After a song or two the park was for anybody to drop in and drop in they did! The park was still full of riders when the PFSP left for the afternoon.

We are the Portage Family Skatepark Project and we want you to be a part of the skatepark family. We are always looking for Volunteers to share information, run simple events, and kids are always welcome to come along. Not only do we want to get kids active who may not have before we want to get Families active within our community. Visit our website and sign up https://portageskatepark.org/join-pfsp/ and click on the volunteer application!