I am a lifelong Charlotte county resident and skateboarder who wants to bring an indoor skatepark to Port Charlotte, Florida. 

Since I was a child I always had a love for skateboarding. I love the skills that skateboarding helps develop, like perseverance and determination. I love the community around skateboarding and the support and kindness shown to skaters of all kinds at all levels. I also love how skateboarding can simply provide a productive, fun, and positive outlet for kids who are struggling either at home, in school, or in life in general. Skateboarding is a form of exercise, a hobby, and more recently now, an Olympic sport! And yet, I have always wondered why there was no support for skating in my town? Businesses, parks, and plazas are full of “no skateboarding” signage. There are no designated skate areas or skateparks in Port Charlotte. Local residents call the police on skateboarders when they are forced to skate in areas that are populated, busy, and even dangerous. 

Now that I am an adult, I hold a job, go to school, and still keep up with my skateboarding on an almost daily basis, and I would like to start changing the perception of skateboarding in this town and bring a little more support for the kids and adults who love to skate in port Charlotte, Fl. I believe the best way to provide support for our skateboarding community is to petition the county for an indoor skatepark in our town. 

Below I have a few suggestions/reasons why the skatepark would benefit both the skaters and the rest of our community equally. 

1. An indoor park provides a closed off space where people can skate without disturbing the public but also without endangering themselves in busy streets of traffic and pedestrians. It will also provide shelter from weather that otherwise discourages skateboarding like rain and intense heat which we experience often in this area. 
   
   
2. The park should have lights and be open 24 hours. This provides a place to skate for anyone no matter their work, school, or life schedule this way nobody gets left out of enjoying time at this park. 
   
   
3. The park will likely need to be staffed by paid workers or volunteers to keep the park clean, safe, and operational. However, I would argue that many of the skaters in Port Charlotte would be more than willing to help out by filling these positions to keep the park running. 

In closing, I believe the community of Port Charlotte would benefit tremendously from the addition of an indoor skatepark. Not just from the added jobs and tourism it would create but also by supporting and encouraging a disenfranchised group of kids and adults in our community. The more signatures on this petition, the better, once we get some notoriety we can bring this to our county officials and start pushing for the first steps towards this goal. A big Thank You to everyone who took the time to read, share, or sign this!