Hello, my name is Doug, I am 19 years old, and I live in Camdenton, Missouri. I grew up in Ventura, California, about a hour north of Los Angeles, where skateboarding culture was a fascinating part of my youth and many around me. I moved here right as I graduated high school, which was definitely a little bit of a struggle, but once again I found refuge at the skatepark. The skatepark and skate community became a place where I could be one with myself, as it had many times before for me, and I see that in countless of kids as they enjoy them on their selected wheel device. Whether that be a skateboard, scooter, bike, roller skates or heck even an R.C car. 

But I do remember the first time I went to Camdenton skatepark, and my jaw dropped a little bit I thought to myself, "this is what I'm working with?" Guess I just grew up a little too SoCal spoiled. The Camdenton skatepark currently sits on a 7,200 square foot lot(60ftx120ft), and all three metal ramps combined only take up a total of 500 square feet. The rest of that is flatground, and trust me, no skater hates flatground, but there is too much of a good thing. Now don't get me wrong, there are a couple railroad ties, some DIY boxes/manny pads, a random piece of angle iron, someone brought a rail from home, and there is some other junk people have started making do with, but with an extra 6,600 square feet of park to work with, the possibilities are endless. 

With Covid, 2020, social media, and bunch of other stuff, skateboarding has seen a serious rise, with predictions of the global market hitting 3 billion by 2025. To put that into perspective, the household cleaning supply market is worth roughly 30 billion, and more people have household cleaning supplies than skateboards, so they are not doing half bad if you ask me.

The final goal is to make a better, and honestly probably safer skatepark, where wheeled devices of any type can ride. That was really hard for me to say because you know, scooters, but we need everyone to make it work! Today after a chat with the parks director he seemed on board with this idea, but said that the best way to get anything done is to show there is a desire.

With the population of Mid-Missorui on the rise, more people have and will start coming to the skatepark, especially those darn out of staters like me. But I thought to myself, what is the best way to get involved and make a difference in my new community, and I think this whole skatepark thing is right down my alley. Please follow @camdenton_skatepark on Instagram, or Camdenton Skatepark Project/@skatecamdenton on Facebook for more updates on how it's going and how to help, thank you!