A nonprofit called The Carry On Foundation teaches youth important life lessons through the sport of skateboarding.
The Carry On Foundation, also the nonprofit arm of Provo based company Thread, was founded by Colby and McKenzie Bauer in 2015, according their website.
“Our mission is to utilize action sports to teach resilience skills, promote mental health and foster the development of confidence, competence, connection and character,” Dave Lowery, program director for Carry On, said. “The goal is to help them become better people.”
Carry On offers lessons to youth ages 3-17 years old, and a single weekly adult class for those 18 and older.
“There’s a lot of skills you learn from skateboarding," Lowery said. “Overcoming fears, setting goals and working towards those goals, learning from failure, getting up after you fall.”
Although the main focus of the skate park is to teach life lessons through skate lessons, there are opportunities for anyone to skate the park each week. On their website, there is a scheduling option where you can reserve a 2 hour time slot for either fast or slow paced open skate, $10 or $8 respectively.
“We open to the public on Thursday nights and Saturdays. That’s been picking up some momentum and I think it will pick up even more momentum once it gets cold,” Lowery said. “That is just a way for us to supplement our lesson revenue, because we are a nonprofit.”
With winter approaching, Carry On’s indoor skatepark offers a location for skaters to continue skating, without having to fight the cold weather and snowfall.
“I mean, when I moved here I was surprised that there wasn’t an indoor park kinda close to Provo,” local skater Tyson Sitterud said. “I’ll still go out, but skating in the cold is a whole other deal.”
In addition to the park being indoors, it includes two different sized halfpipes, and a large bowl feature to skate.
“My favorite parts of the skatepark are definitely the bowl and the mini ramp,” Chance Power, a regular at the skate park, said. “They’re aren't that many good bowls in Utah. Having a good bowl that’s indoors and is smooth to skate is super nice.”
“If you have kids that want to learn how to skate, send them our way," Lowery said. "If you like what we're doing, and you’re a skater yourself, come for open skate that supports our program. We want to be part of the community.”