A Giraffe has been sighted in Oak Harbor, WA
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by Steven Paul Whitsitt
Sarah Swagart may be young, but she knows an injustice when she sees one. Back when she was an eighth-grader, Sarah decided it was wrong for young skateboarders to be treated like criminals. Kids who skated in Oak Harbor’s parking lots and on its sidewalks were threatened with fines of as much as $500 and 90 days in jail. Sarah, not a skateboarder herself, could see that the kids might be annoying, but they definitely were not in the category of the thieves and vandals who were given such sentences. The kids were nobody special, she thought—just boys who needed a place to exercise their sometimes awesome and quite legal skills.
She formed “Nobody Special,” an organization whose mission is to get the skateboarders (who are all boys) their place—and to get the community to recognize them as good athletes, not hoodlums.
Architect Terry Ledesky volunteered to design a skateboard park. But there had to be some place to put it. Sarah realized that no matter how much it scared her to speak in public, she had to start talking if the kids were going to get some land and build their park. She wrote up a petition for land and got signatures from kids, teachers, police officers, and even some store owners. Leading a delegation of 40 kids, she stood before the City Council and pointed out that the town had baseball fields, basketball courts, a roller rink and a swimming pool where kids could do the sports of their choice. What would be so different about accommodating the skateboarders?
The biggest problem, besides the kids’ bad image, was insurance liability. What if a skater got hurt and sued the city? Sarah and the skateboarders got information on safety and liability from other towns that had skateboard parks. The City Council finally agreed there could be a park next to the public swimming pool.
The kids are on a major fundraising, volunteer-recruiting drive now. They’ve got a commitment from the SeaBees at Whidbey Naval Air Station to do the construction work; they’re going to businesses to get donated materials; and they’re on the sidewalks raising “a mile of money”—26,400 dollar bills.
That’s a lot of car washes and penny roundups, but Sarah and the members of Nobody Special are determined to get the job done.
“Before this project I’d never stand up to anybody,” Sarah says. “Now, I would definitely encourage people to stand up for what they believe in.” Demonstrating exactly what she means, the 16 year-old has gone public about her own sexual abuse by a neighbor and her ensuing turn to drug abuse. “If hearing my story can help one kid avoid the problems I’ve had, it’ll be worth it,” says Sarah Swagart.