ALLEGANY, N.Y. — The excitement is building as a new skate park is about to officially open in Cattaraugus County.
For our Most Buffalo Story of the Day, we found out more about what it's taking to open the new Allegany River Skate Park.
"It started prior to COVID and we were fundraising. It was a little difficult to raise funds because it's a small town, but we were doing great, making great headway and then COVID hit, which kind of put a stop to that and most things. And then we started back up, and we just couldn't get the funds we wanted," said Jennifer DeLong, an Allegany River Skate Park board member.
It's been a long journey for the Allegany River Skate Park. DeLong started volunteering her time to help transform a field at Allegany River Park into a skate park in 2018. She says after COVID hit, the volunteers were about to give up.
"But then we had an opportunity to apply for a Built to Play grant, which we were approved, and so we did not have to raise the funds. We were, you know, the grant gave us the money to build the skate park, and that just kind of snowballed, and a year and a half, I think, after that is when construction started, so it was exciting," DeLong said.
We visited DeLong, and her son Jhonas, back in January of 2022 when they had just received a $300,000 grant for the skate park from the Skatepark Project founded by Tony Hawk.
Earlier this summer, they finally broke ground.
"The construction finished around mid-August a few weeks ago, and it moved pretty quickly, and it was fantastic. So we kind of had a soft-opening where the public could use the park, and it has been packed ever since which is great, and it helped that they were open before school started," DeLong said.
DeLong says the park gives kids a chance to get off their phones and get outside to explore sports they might not otherwise get a chance to experience.
"It's good for the kids who don't play the typical sports like, you know, baseball, football. It gets them outside. They're using scooters there, skateboards, BMX bikes. The parents can sit there because it's right next to a playground, so if they have little ones, the whole family can be there. There's a boat launch right next to it where kayaks can come up, too, so it's just a great overall area, and thing that we have added to Allegany so everybody can enjoy," DeLong said.
And although it's been open this summer already, the official ribbon cutting is happening in a few weeks.
"Saturday, September 21 from 1 to 3, it's going to be our grand opening. We're going to have skate contests. We're going to have vendors, a food truck, EARS is going to have a local rescue with some of their pups that are up for adoption. It's just going to be a really great event. Live music. So we're just going to really celebrate the skate park before the weather gets too bad where we can't," DeLong said.
DeLong says the park is already bringing the community together, which was the whole point all those years ago when she first got involved.
"We even had adult skateboarders there that were teaching a little three-year-old how to, you know, safely ride, so it's just being passed down, and it's becoming more acceptable, and it just adds even more to the community," DeLong said.