The Newquay skateboarding scene are coming together on the 21st of June. (GO SKATEBOARDING DAY) at Newquay , concrete waves, to raise money and awareness to mental health and create an inspiring and safe environment, with sending a positive message to the younger generation. As young kids, looking cool is everything. That’s why it means so much when the older skaters they look up to lead by example. When the people they admire open up about how they feel, it sends a powerful message — that real strength is being able to talk. That it’s cool to care. This kind of positive influence is how we start to shift the stigma around mental health. and possibly how we even start preventing suicides. We’re overwhelmed with gratitude for the support from the community — every person, every brand, every bit of love. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you. None of this would be possible without you all.

(In May 2019, at the age of 28, professional skateboarder Ben Raemers died by suicide. The devastation and loss of such a beautifully contagious human being rippled across the world.

Through seeing the sadness left behind and the desire from the community to support an ongoing project, The Ben Raemers Foundation was formed.

AIM-

The overall aim of the foundation is to provide a way to maintain Ben’s legacy and help prevent any more loss to suicide.

We aim to enable the skateboarding community to have opportunities to develop the skills and tools needed to support each other to understand and address mental health. Suicide is a preventable death, so it’s something everyone can work together to do and save lives

Community-

By creating a platform and safe spaces for people to talk about mental health within the context of the skateboarding world, we are breaking down fears, improving knowledge and changing preconceptions and misgivings around mental health stigma and taboos.

We welcome all ages, genders, and backgrounds to be part of making skateboarding a suicide-safe community)

Overall, the money raised will be used on raising awareness about mental health and suicide prevention within skateboarding. We do this through skateboarding events, creating social media content, working with skate media, producing films, holding training on suicide prevention and enabling access to counselling.

Sometimes when people do fundraisers or provide us with grants we spend the money on specific activities. For example, last year there was a fundraiser at a skate jam and and they used the money to print a zine following our Writing Towards Wellbeing course.

(the ben raemers foundation)