Sidewalk Skate Ministry was birthed as a skate ministry model of ‘Splinter Youth Inc’ a nonprofit skate ministry founded by Mark Jannetta.
Splinter Youth started out as ‘Splinter Skatepark’ at ‘Crossover Community Church’ a youth friendly Hip Hop church in Tampa, FL, in 2004. With the success of the skate park ministry the vision expanded to become a resource and equipping ministry to help other leaders also start skate ministries throughout the US. This lead Mark to move to Joplin, MO and partner with a youth ministry called ‘The Bridge’ and also the ‘American Ramp Company’ to offer state of the art design and construction options and in particular DIY kit ramps.
While in Joplin Mark built portable ramps and put together ‘Sidewalk Skate Ministry’ and launched a local chapter in Sarcoxie, MO in partnership with a church there. It was a great success and the foundational block for everything that has followed in Memphis, TN.
Our Memphis Story…
Mark moved to Memphis, TN for two main reasons. One reason was since the economy was hitting an all time low, funding and skate park sales to maintain Splinter were drying up. The second reason was he wanted to refocus and refine the vision and direction of his own life and therefore by default the direction and vision for Splinter Youth Inc also. Mark moved to Memphis to do a discipleship training program called ‘Downline’ and took a ministry job with ‘Memphis Athletic Ministry’ known as ‘MAM’ for short; an inner-city sports ministry mainly geared towards basketball.
Splinter was made dormant, but despite being a basketball focused ministry, Mark could not help but introduce skateboarding to the youngsters at the Grizzlies Center gym he worked at. Aaron Shafer of ‘Skatelife Memphis’ had also been trying to do the same thing at Greenlaw Community Center in uptown Memphis having built a friendship with Detric Golden who was running ‘Golden Child Ministries’ out of Greenlaw.
Greenlaw was one of four city community centers scheduled to be shut down until MAM stepped in to take over the management of them. Detric Golden was hired as Greenlaws director and Mark started working there also in October 2009.
Mark was able to take handfuls of kids at a time outside to skate the few boards he had available. Aaron secured a $2500 Nike grant and alongside private donors enough money was raised to purchase the materials for a 3’ tall, 20’ wide mini ramp at Greenlaw. Despite some initial opposition and complications finally with Detric’s blessing and persuasion we were able to get the ramp built indoors instead of outdoors and the design happened to be a perfect fit for the space available. After that Greenlaw gained momentum with more and more kids, both boys and girls, skating for the first time and a core group of youngsters taking to skateboarding permanently and affectionately now known as the ‘Greenlaw Groms’.
In the summer of 2010 Dustin Mallory graduated out of Teen Challenge to join Mark as a second skater to be based out of Greenlaw and he has done a great job further teaching and leading the Greenlaw Groms.
The room with the mini ramp was later painted with murals which included a memorial to ‘Clay’ Hopkins who was killed by a garbage truck while skating in Memphis. The unveiling of the wonderful artwork was tied in with a demo by Jud Heald and ‘Untitled Skateboards’ in the Fall.
Memphis had no skate parks and attempts by Aaron to get a public park built were being hindered. That in mind and with the proven success of Greenlaw the question was: What’s next? It made sense to revisit the Sidewalk Skate Ministry model for taking skateboarding into the community on a low budget and without building permanent ramps while at the same time crossing community dividing lines to share skateboarding with everyone no matter what race or neighborhood they were from. It also seemed like a great way to take the Greenlaw Groms and challenge them to step up as co-leaders teaching the next generation of beginners to skate.
So, Aaron came to Mark with a grant application for Give365 to fill out two days before its deadline. Fortunately the application was received favorably and they were invited to present the vision in person, at a dinner downtown, alongside 14 other nonprofits, beating out 100 others for the opportunity.
The presentation went better than expected and Give365 voted to fully fund the request for $7500 towards ramps and trailer. Ricky White, a local fireman, welded us some steel framed boxes and a rail, a trailer was purchased from Jim DeWitt of Dewitts TrailerWorld, and an eye catching wrap was installed on the trailer. We unofficially christened and showcased the first few pieces Ricky built along with the trailer at a mini ramp contest held at Greenlaw in partnership with ‘JSAW’ on January 29th 2011.
