By Pauline Masson – Pacific officials are looking at the idea of a skatepark in the city. But as president Joe Biden would say, “Here’s the deal:” Some seed money is going to be needed to move the project forward.
A group organized as the Pacific Skatepark Committee wants to build a skatepark as a memorial to their friend, the late Jeffrey White who was a star skateboarder among pre teens and teens.
A tentative location would place the skatepark in the northwest corner of Liberty Field, north of the new fishing pond. A company to design and build the park has been found, the American Ramp Company of Joplin, Missouri. The company wants $7,500 up front.
In their presentation to the Park Board, the committee members asked the city to grant the $7,500 to get the project started.
Jarod Cattoor made an emotional appeal to the Park Board, lauding his childhood skateboarding friend as a, “great little skateboarder, out there doing what none of the rest of us could.” He displayed photos of Jeffrey, probably at age 12, in a series of high flying jumps, “out there from morning to night, doing what he loved.” And they envisioned a mural depicting Jeffrey in the new skatepark.
The location the committee is eyeing for the skate park is the northwest corner of Liberty Field, north of the new fishing pond. Cost of the project is estimated between $300,000 and $500,000.
Cattoor said the committee would launch a campaign to raise the funds through donations and grants and has partnered with the MAGI Foundation to provide donors with the necessary tax breaks.
The Park Board liked the idea and voted unanimously to recommend that the city move forward with the project. At the February 1 board meeting, aldermen agreed to move the project forward, not to grant the $7,500 as the necessary downpayment but to seek a formal proposal from the builder.
I have to tell you, . . .the dream to build a skatepark is reminiscent of the late Helen Preiss’ quest to build a senior center.
When she launched the idea in the year 2000, she thought she needed $300,000. In the end it was closer to a $500,000. She flung herself headlong into to a series of bake sales, yard sales and quilt raffles, bringing in sums like $70 or $120. The kids at Truman Elementary School sold Valentine’s Day candygrams to help her. I don’t recall how much they raised.
The big wigs weren’t taking her entirely seriously that first couple of years.
She raised money in nickels and quarters,” her friend Mary Beth Schmidt said.
“It is a good idea,” one business owner said in a public meeting. “If it looks like it’s going to take off, I’ll make a donation.”
In year three, a group of young women, the Missouri Service Organization, took her seriously enough that they gave her their year’s fundraising purse, $500.
The only time I ever saw her nervous to talk to anyone was when she decided to go talk to the late Lloyd Baker, founder of Baker Ice, a larger than life personality and a personage in his own right. Even though he was seriously ill at the time, he told her that he already knew who she was and that she was going to have a senior center. He gave her $5,000 and challenged the Chamber of Commerce, his pet civic organization, to match the $5,000.
Somewhere about the sixth year of her efforts, when she had reached the huge sum of $45,000 and construction costs had escalated, raising the projected cost far beyond her means, the City of Pacific agreed to apply for a grant. Two grants were awarded, a CDBG grant and a state tax credit grant based on donations that she had to go out and get. Eventually all the tax credits were sold. The two grants raised $370,000. The Baker family eventually donated $40,000, which pushed Helen’s local funds to almost $90.000.
The Senior Center opened in 2007, completely paid for.
That same year, the Pacific community flirted with the idea of developing a skateboard park.
The model for the Pacific project was the North Jefferson County Skateboard Park in Byrnesville, a low maintenance, un-supervised facility, designed as a beginner park. Then city administrator Harold Selby had helped to develop the park. He was a member of the Highway 30 Foundation that raised $250,000 to build the park.
The Park Board liked the idea of building a park in Pacific but the project never got off the ground that year
With hopes for a skatepark to benefit area youngsters now, maybe the community can move things along more quickly. When they heard of the proposed skatepark, the Pacific Eagles donated $500 to kick off the fundraising effort. The Committee launched a gofundme page Wednesday afternoon
Cattoor said the Skatepark Committee believes a skatepark would not only provide an exciting recreation for the city’s young people it would help the economy. Like the Pacific Swim Team and the Pacific Soccer Association that host regional competitions bringing huge crowds into the City Park and Liberty Field, a skatepark would attract young people and families from across the region
I agree.
If every individual in our city who ever said out loud, “There is nothing for young people to do in Pacific,” would reach in his or her pocket and make a donation, we’d be on our way.
If every civic group that believes hordes of visitors to a skate park would enhance the economy, would make donations and every church would ask its youth ministry to stage their car washes, and its women’s group to stage a bake sale, we would have community campaign that might move a skatepark along a lot faster than six years.
For more information check out the Jeff White Memorial Skatepark Facebook page.
If you want to help with fundraising, you can donate at
It might also be mentioned that one of the greatest assistance to Mrs. Preiss’s dream was the donation of the land on which the Senior Center stands It was Donated by the owners of Pacific Care Center whose Board consisted of Ollie Preiss Joe Dailey and Bob Schmidt This did much to see her DREAM COME TRUE !