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Skaters — The Kind 50

A skater in a cap crouches on a board as he rolls down an empty road toward a railway crossing.

born to shred

Video still: an aerial view of a long straight desert road between scrubby desert flats, under a sunset sky.

Skating asks you to fall, a lot, in public, till one day you don't.

A bearded skater in a bucket hat and backpack crouches low on his board on a sunlit road.

Photo: Tony Memento

A skater with a backpack pushes along an empty desert road.
A skater in black sits on the roadside stretching toward his feet in front of a yellow field.

Photo: Josh Katz

A man lies flat on the road beside a backpack, a skateboard and his shoes.

Photo: Tony Memento

Chad Caruso, bearded and in a cap, smiles at the skateboard deck he holds up beside a country road.

i got sober 10 years ago. it completely changed everything

Built to get back up

Chad Caruso skated across America to raise money for Natural High, a nonprofit that helps kids find something to focus on besides drugs and alcohol, the same thing skating gave him.

Photo: Josh Katz

Video still: a skater’s legs in shorts and striped socks on the road, captioned “Skating Across America In 30 Seconds”.

He pushed from Venice Beach to Jacksonville in 39 days, beating his own cross-country record by 18 days.

A crowd of skaters, families and kids gathered on a brick street under palm trees.
Chad Caruso, smiling and dressed in black, rolls toward the camera on his skateboard down a long road.

$51k+

to help kids

Video still: a pile of sunlit boulders and dry brush in the desert under a clear blue sky.
A yellow bulldozer clearing a demolition site beside a green field.
A kid in a helmet flies through the air holding a painted skateboard, with banana leaves behind him.
A skater in a white shirt flips his board in the air over the trees.

a skatepark in Uganda, reborn

Video still: a skater in a navy shirt and trousers drops in on a DIY concrete ramp under a tin roof.

The Uganda Skateboard Society gave kids in a struggling Mukono neighborhood a safe place to belong with free access to skateboards and lessons, out of a DIY skatepark they'd built themselves. Then the land was sold, and the park was demolished.

A yellow bulldozer behind two men on the rubble of a demolished skatepark.Rebuild Uganda Skateboard Society's Skatepark
Big Love and Congrats Guys! 🎇This is a win for the entire global skate community. 🙏💜🎉
2 heart reactions
❤️❤️❤️❤️ skater supporting skaters for life ❤️❤️❤️❤️ much love from South Africa 🇿🇦❤️
2 heart reactions

With help from Thrasher, Adidas, and skaters around the world, they raised more than $82,000, enough to buy the land outright.

Yes!!! Victory!!! Can’t wait to see the new park and all the magic it will bring! They just started construction on a new skatepark in my hometown too. Positive energy for this world. 🛹❤️
14 heart reactions
Teenage skaters at a concrete ramp, one in a red cap leaning on a deck painted with the word “SKATER”.
The round Uganda Skateboard Society badge: a black skater mid-trick on a red disc ringed with the words “Skate life, better life”, and a crowned crane.

This time, they weren't building on borrowed ground

No one could sell it out from under them again. Whatever they build next, stays with the community.

Video still: a blurred skater in a black T-shirt and green shorts rides the slope of a DIY ramp.

$82k+

raised to get rad

Keep pushing

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