Today marks the fifth and final day of Youth Week, a local and national one-week event to celebrate young people and their contributions to their communities.

The skateboard workshop was an initiative of Red Frogs, a support program for young people from the ages of 15 to 25 that aspires to create a positive peer presence.

“This day is about teaching kids to respect their skate park, respect their community and respect each other,” Red Frog’s Juzzy Vickers said.

The lifelong skater said his experiences growing up in a single-parent home allowed him to connect with many of the children at the park.

“My parents split up when I was 15, so I know what it’s like to come from a broken home.”

READ ALSO:

Juzzy would often hit up his local skatepark as a means of escape.

“It doesn’t matter if you went through this in 1987, 1997 or 2017. What you go through in a broken home is timeless, and that experience can be shared with so many other people.”

Asked if he had any words of advice for children going through similar experiences, he had only one thing to say:

“I don’t want to sound cliche, but treat your friends like family. They’re the ones who are going to be with you for a long time.”

On top of a fun day out at the local skate park and skateboard lessons, prizes were up for grabs. Children could choose from a range of penny skateboards, t-shirts, skateboard wheels, caps and whatnots.

“We have so much to give away that everybody is going to get something at the end of the day,” Red Frog’s Tristan Strange said.