Mount Pleasant Magazine 6.4

72 / 154

72 | |
adding that the presence of skaters in back lots and on
side streets only fed the negative perception of skaters as
miscreants on wheels.
For their part, Smith and her family used their drained
family swimming pool and drove over to Johns Island to
skate at Hank’s. Ackerman Park in West Ashley offered the
region’s skaters a small, designated “skate spot,” but none
of these came close to the actual large-scale parks that,
by 2000, were already being erected across the country.
In 2003, Smith started a small grass-roots organization
to try to bring a skate park to Charleston, but things
really gained momentum when she joined forces with
Ryan Cockrell, who organized the nonprofit PourItNow.
Cockrell, she said, is “a great go-getter when it comes
to speaking with all of the official-type folks.” Soon,
Smith recruited other “very inspirational and dedicated
individuals” to make up the nonprofit’s Charleston board.
“Everyone shared their skills for the purpose of getting
this park,” Smith said. “Celeste James was crucial in her
expertise of finance and her connections through the food
and beverage world, which allowed us to have successful
fundraisers and reach a different crowd. Cecilia Janson
managed the books. Lindsay Gagne kept the minutes.
Others – Steve Aycok, Jack Abbot, Bubber Hutto, Josh
McFadden, Mark Bily – aided in innumerable ways.”
In addition, Smith credited former College of
Charleston World Literature Instructor Jill Conway, whose
position as a Charleston County School Board member
and as a college teacher were key to helping PourItNow
connect both to the student body and to politicians
sympathetic to the cause.
In 2006, PourItNow submitted plans to the city of
Charleston for a park $1.5-million park and proposed to
help pay for it with privately raised funds. Though they
found sympathetic ears in the Recreation Department’s
Laurie Yarbrough and Deputy of Parks Operations Matt
Compton, the city’s leaders ultimately balked at helping
fund or provide the land for the park. Yarbrough and
Compton did contact Tom O’Rourke, executive director of
the Charleston County Park and Recreation Commission,
who, like Smith, is a Mount Pleasant resident.
O’Rourke, former director of the Mount Pleasant
Recreation Department, came to understand PourItNow’s
vision. The need for a designated skating spot became
self-evident as the years passed, highlighted by recurring
confrontations between skaters trying to hone their craft
and law enforcement officers charged with keeping the
streets and sidewalks safe for pedestrians and motorists.
But the wheels of government turn slowly. Desperate
skaters, tired of being banned from public property, took