LOCKPORT, N.Y. — The Lockport skate park is getting the repairs it needs so kids have a safe place to skate and ride their bikes again. Friday, we took a look at the progress that's being made there.
"Shoring things up and getting new skate surfaces where it needs it will make it a heck of a lot safer than it is right now," Rich Hoose said.
When we visited the Lockport skate park this winter, it was full of holes and falling apart. But there's hope, The Friends of the Railyard Skate Park group is raising money to fix it.
"It's gonna be a lot of work," Hoose said.
Rich Hoose, Vincent Wiese, and Joe Villella are just three of the volunteers making it happen.
"When I was five, I used to come here and skate like when it was not totally destroyed, and my uncles were so passionate with skating, my dad used to skate," said Wiese. "So I moved back here about a year ago, and I saw how messed up it was, and I wanted to do something about it."
With the city's blessing, work started last weekend.
"We had two city guys here, and they brought in a giant John Deere tractor, and we chained up the ramps and moved them with that, and then we had maybe 12, 13 people here helping move the ramps and stuff," Wiese said.
The idea is to repair as much as they can of what's there right now and eventually replace it with a concrete skate park. A concrete park could run upwards of $500,000. The group hopes to raise $250,000 to qualify for a matching grant.
Every little bit helps, including the $950 they won at Pints for Progress - a Shark Tank-like event in Lockport.
The rehab phase will take about a month, and the goal is to do a Fourth of July Skate Jam to celebrate the park's re-opening.
"It means a lot for the community because there's a lot of skateboarders in Lockport, and a lot of people use this park. For the past couple years, it's been a little iffy with all the holes in the ramps and everything, so a lot of people are behind us because we're doing this," said Villella.
There's a GoFundMe page and they're also in need of volunteers and construction materials.