Home page

Text size

E-mail this page

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A group of youth from St. Joseph School decided last week to reclaim the skate park near their school, which tends to be littered with broken bottles and cigarette butts.

Tyberious Adjun shows off graffiti he recently added to the half pipe in the skate park near St. Joseph School on Thursday. - Laura Busch/NNSL photo

"We wanted to clean it up and make it better so little kids can hang out without being in a bad environment," said 12-year-old Matthew Tuccaro, one of seven grade 6 to 8 Do Edaezhe leadership students who spent last Thursday morning cleaning up the city-owned park and painting it with positive graffiti.

After all the bottles, cigarette butts, garbage and broken brush had been cleared away, the students decalled the equipment with their favourite skate brand logos.

At both entrances and along the ground of the park, they tagged the word "choices," which they hope will encourage positive behaviour on the part of those who hang out there.

"We spray-painted choices at the entrances so people would think about the choices they make before they actually do them here at the skate park, like littering, smoking and all that stuff" said 13-year-old Skyler Chwelos.

"A lot of skaters smoke and then, because people have seen them smoking, they just think that most skaters are like that - that they're bad people - but really they're not."

Chwelos has been skateboarding for about five years and uses the park often, mostly during the lunch hour. He said the debris normally scattered around makes it hard to skate because it can get caught in their wheels and trips them up.

Both he and Tuccaro, who has been skateboarding at the park for about a year, hope other skaters will co-operate and keep the park clean from now on.

Tuccaro also said his parents would be happier about him practising on his board in the park if it wasn't associated with smoking and drinking.

"They don't really like me hanging around here," he said.

Instructor Denise Bailey applauded her students' efforts with taking ownership of and pride in the park. One of the components of the Do Edaezhe leadership program is for students to do monthly service-learning projects that focus on making their community a better place.

"These are the kids that use the park and already I've heard from one of the kids, 'Man, I'm going to tell my friends to keep the park clean because it took so much work to clean it,'" she said. "Hopefully, it will be a place where people feel comfortable coming and will use it more."

We welcome your opinions. Click here to e-mail a letter to the editor.