County’s only wooden skatepark reopens today in Volcano with community-led repairs

After being closed for nearly 5 years, the gate to the Volcano Skatepark will finally be unlocked Saturday afternoon, with dynamic features ready for all levels of skater to drop-in.

The community led the effort to repair the facility, with countless volunteers providing labor for more than two years.

“Weʻre really excited about reopening for the community, but I also think that this will bring skaters (to Volcano) from all over to check out this specific site,” said skater Nalu Ledbetter, who helped lead the repair effort. “It provides people with a unique experience, kind of like a surf spot.”

Located in a covered play court, the Volcano Skatepark was forced to close to the community in March 2020 due to COVID-19 restrictions.

But when other parks and courts began to reopen, the community was dismayed by the continuously locked gate around the beloved wooden skate features. 

The County of Hawaiʻi County Parks and Recreation department decided to keep the skatepark closed after they noticed the wooden structure had deteriorated to the point that it posed considerable safety risks to users.  

“This is a small town and there’s not a lot of stuff for kids to do, and that frustration really started to come out when it was still closed after a year,” Volcanoʻs Evanitta Paiva said. 

Ledbetter added: “Kids started to get in trouble because they’d climb the fence, roll around in here and police would come up and waste their already precious time.”

While getting questions from the community as well as the police department, Parks and Recreation explored options to address the skatepark, which included fixing it to meet safety standards or tearing it down. 

“We did not want the park torn down, especially since we didn’t know if there would be another one built in its place,” Paiva said. “This is the county’s only wooden skatepark and it was donated to the community many years ago. We weren’t ready to see it go.”

After rallying people from the community, Paiva, Ledbetter and Daron Key created the Volcano Skatepark Organization to advocate for rehabilitating the wooden structure. 

The group established a Friends of the Park agreement with Parks and Recreation, which allowed the community to provide expertise and labor while the department supplied funding for the building materials and general oversight of the restoration project. 

“It was a difficult undertaking,” Ledbetter said. “We were not the original builders, so we had to reverse engineer, figure out what materials would work, source it and give the county the cost. When funding came in, we were able to spend it only on the material since it was all volunteer work.”

Beginning in 2022, people would travel from around the island almost every weekend to work at the skatepark, bringing tools, generators and food. Most of them did not have contracting experience and were always learning something new, or teaching a new group what they had learned the week before. 

The work included building a new wall around the skatepark, replacing the damaged, deteriorated surface of the old structure with a new, safe material, and checking in with the county along the way.

While the work was tiring and took more than two years, the volunteers kept showing up to make it happen for the community. 

“Getting involved in this project was personal for me, because when I was a teenager, this was where I would skate and not get in trouble,” Ledbetter said. “Fifteen years later, it seemed right to come in and try to figure this out for those teens and kids growing up now.”

The cost of materials for the project was $18,445, according to Parks and Recreation.

 “Working with the Volcano Skatepark Organization was vital to the success of this project,” said Maurice Messina, Director of Parks and Recreation. “The volunteers’ passion for the sport of skateboarding, combined with their knowledge of skate park construction, allowed us to join together and restore this important community asset. We extend a big ‘mahalo’ to the Volcano Skatepark Group and all those who supported this endeavor.”  

The Volcano Skatepark is officially reopening at 4 p.m. Saturday, with a blessing and lei untying at the facility located next to the Cooper Center at 19-4030 Wright Road. 

Paiva added: “Itʻs an amazing, special place that I would feel safe bringing my kids to. Itʻs going to be a great addition to this area, which has been hosting more farmers markets and night markets for the community recently.”

Parks and Recreation will continue making improvements to the structure that surrounds the skatepark and will keep up its partnership with the Volcano Skatepark Organization, which will be overseeing the maintenance of the skatepark.

While he was unsure of the process in the beginning, Ledbetter hopes this restoration project can inspire people to look at the needs of their community and work together with the county toward creative solutions.

“If you see the need and neglect, or if it’s outside the skillsets of the county, they are willing to work with a group that can facilitate the work and make it happen,” Ledbetter said.