Skate Mentee Shares What STOKED Means to Her
Recently our Program Manager, James, asked new STOKED student, Nenna, to share a few words about our program and what the experience has been like. Much to his surprise, she shared a heartfelt essay about what skateboarding and STOKED means to her:
“For years I’ve been obsessed with skateboarding-ever since I saw the CONS skate videos promoting the new Louie Lopez skate shoe in 2016, but I never had a skateboard. When I asked my mom for one she would say no because she thought it was too pricey. So I waited for awhile and in the meantime, I just watched skating videos and tutorials for tricks and lessons on how to assemble boards and what each part was for…then I started watching Thrasher videos and subscribing to YouTubers known for their skating content. I would start pretending that I was buying one for myself online, and would go to online stores like CCS, Tactics, and Skate Wearhouse. I would filter out everything according to my preferences and choose to build my own complete and add everything to the cart just to remove them, because I would never buy them. But over the summer when I asked my dad instead of my mom he said he’d think about it -which was as close to a yes as I ever got - so I was very excited. He didn’t end up buying one for me until November of this year, but I was still patient. Coming into this school I was sad because I saw people with skateboards and would wish my parents were like theirs. But I liked the fact that the playground we went out to during lunch was a skate park, so during lunch people would skate on the various ramps, ledges and poles, and I would sit and watch in awe. When I first heard of STOKED, I was so happy that I could skate and build my own board for free. So I signed up in a heartbeat and I’m glad that I did. When my dad saw that I actually wanted to do this, he bought the board for me. I also made friends there which is nice.
I know that to skate you have to try countless times to achieve consistency in your tricks and you can’t give up easily, so being around skaters is nice because it makes skateboarding more real. They tell you the ups and downs of it and it’s nice to be around people that don’t give up when things get hard. It makes you want to try more in other things too. Joining STOKED made me feel like I’m in some sort of family because we’re all there for the same things and we share certain interests that can bring you closer. STOKED also helps me at home because before I had too much spare time. Now I have more things to do and it makes me want to finish tasks faster to get to skate. I’m thankful for being here and being able to be with great people each week.”
Nenna with STOKED NY Coach Jenny