Provident Skate Park is a

skateboard A skateboard is a type of sports equipment used for skateboarding. They are usually made of a specially designed 7-8 ply maple plywood deck and polyurethane wheels attached to the underside by a pair of skateboarding trucks. The skateboarde ...

and

inline skate Inline skates are a type of roller skate used for inline skating. Unlike quad skates, which have two front and two rear wheels, inline skates typically have two to five wheels arranged in a single line. Some, especially those for recreation, ha ...

park in

Visalia Visalia ( ) is a city in the agricultural San Joaquin Valley of California. The population was 141,384 as per the 2020 census. Visalia is the fifth-largest city in the San Joaquin Valley, the 42nd most populous in California, and 192nd in ...

, California.

Creation

It was created in December 1996 when the Kaweah Delta Health Care District led in an effort to create a park specifically for skateboarders and inline skaters

The hospital received many donations, including a large sum from the Provident Mortgage Corporation, after which the park was named. The hospital also initiated a

payroll A payroll is the list of employees of some company that is entitled to receive payments as well as other work benefits and the amounts that each should receive. Along with the amounts that each employee should receive for time worked or tasks pe ...

deduction option for the hospital's employees. With these combined efforts, the Kaweah Delta Health Care District was able to raise over $260,000. Over 80% of the funds spent on the creation of the park were from the efforts of the community.

Approval

After most of the necessary money had been accumulated, the Visalia City Council approved an area of at Recreation Park for Provident Skate Park to be built. A unique team of several local skateboarders, a contractor, a draftsman and city and hospital staff were brought together to create a unique design. Several meetings were held for skateboarders to share their ideas to help make the park fun and different, while catering to their interests. In order for the skate park to succeed, it had to have the ability to keep skaters off private property and let them have their own area to skate. The skaters suggested elements that would hold their attention and helped emulate regular street skating. Benches, rails and steps were suggested by the skaters and eventually created alongside the pipes and volcanoes.

The Park

Provident Skate Park is in diameter, with dimensions of 300'x100'. It has been identified as one of the largest municipal skate parks in

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. Some of its more attractive features are a large

funbox A funbox is a standard element of a skatepark. It generally consists of a box shape with a flat top and a ramp on two or more sides. A funbox may also include other elements that allow for more complicated skateboarding tricks.''Thrasher'' maga ...

, barbells, volcanoes and a snake run, which ends in a bowl. One can skate the benches as well, seeing as how most of them are concrete. The park can accommodate up to 75 people skating in it at one time, and the layout of the park itself allows the skater to be in perpetual motion. by riding through hips and volcanoes at various locations, the skater is able to keep skating. The park itself is essentially divided into three parts, for beginner, intermediate and advanced skaters.

Trivia

* Provident is the site of the eventual suicide of the titular protagonist in the 2002 movie ''

Ken Park ''Ken Park'' is a 2002 erotic drama which revolves around the abusive and dysfunctional lives of several teenagers, set in the city of Visalia, California. It was written by Harmony Korine, who based it on Larry Clark's journals and stories. The ...

'', which was never published in the United States due to its controversial content.

References

{{Reflist Provident Skate Park