Dream. Empowerment. Love. Skate

Play Equity to Advance Mental Health (sponsored by the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation)

Central LA

Expand existing project, program, or initiative

The essence of skateboarding is about community, inclusivity and equality. Since skateboarding has a relatively low price point for entry in to the sport, it has grown quickly among youth of varying means. As a result, the skateboarding community is known to be a diverse, welcoming and empowering sport for young people. Unfortunately, due to the male dominated nature of the sport, this has been true almost exclusively for men and boys. Sex-discrimination and harassment is rampant. Women, people who identify as women, and girls face challenges creating safe and welcoming spaces for themselves in skateparks and other public "skate friendly" places. For adaptive skaters, the barriers they face are lamentably even higher and more difficult to overcome. The Posieden Foundation has been directly addressing the needs of female able and adaptive skaters by advocating for equal access and providing a platform to increase their visibility.

Poseiden Foundation's Ladies Day takes place annually in Downtown Los Angeles. Held at the World Famous skate complex The Berrics, Ladies Day gives Women, Girls and persons who identify as female, the opportunity to take over the facility and create a safe, encouraging and fun environment for women to skate. This year we are building on our initiative to uplift adaptive female skaters to give skateboarders with health conditions or physical challenges a platform to demonstrate their talents to the world. Our programing includes skateboarding sessions where peers get to skate together and skate clinics that teach skateboarding techniques. We will also have a variety of workshops that develop leadership skills, give access to tailored coaching and support, facilitate networking and bonding among participants, teach self-defense, and promote other well-being workshops such as healing through art, mindful practices and other skills to support healthy living. At Ladies Day we also acknowledge the acute crisis unhoused people are experiencing in Downtown LA by holding a fundraiser to donate food and supplies. This year our goal is to also connect unhoused people to resources and get the community involved in advocating for the issue.

Through the sport of skateboarding, Poseiden Foundation gives young women and girls, both able and adaptive, an opportunity for life changing experiences to pursue their passions alongside other participants. The ultimate goal is to engage Angeleno women and girl skateboarders in the sport and culture while teaching them valuable life skills via workshops at the event. We seek to build capacity in the organization in order to replicate Ladies Day in other cities so that we can have a greater impact in California and beyond. We also highlight and advocate for unhoused people in Downtown LA and would like to build on that initiative to get more of the skate community involved. After all, skaters and the unhoused intimately know and share the streets of Los Angeles. Together we can uplift both marginalized groups and give them access to positive life altering resources.

Key Performance Indicators *Base building: We will measure the impact to our base building by measuring the retention of our current base (how may repeat participants), and the number of new community members that attend the event. We will also calculate the number of views through our digital media platforms. *Leadership development: Using a post event survey and our volunteer management tool, we will calculate the number of participants, the number of volunteers we enroll and identify and measure the number of volunteers to potential leaders and leaders. *Strengthening partnerships: We will measure the number of new partnerships that are developed at the event and post event. *Advocacy: Number of community members reached through out humanitarian outreach program. We will also base success on how much money and resources were donated and pledged to unhoused organizations during the event.