Starting Saturday, April 23, the new Millwork Commons Skate Spot will be home to The Bay’s tiered Skate School program! At Rabble Mill, we believe kids can only dream as big as they’ve seen.
By Rabble Mill
Young people need culturally relevant programming and talent-building education to connect the dots between their organic interests and the jobs of tomorrow. Through out-of-school-time engagement in Omaha, Lincoln and statewide, Rabble Mill (501c3) creates opportunities for K-12 youth to fall in love with skateboarding, music and digital content creation — teaching social-emotional and technical skills along the way. Through spring alone in Omaha, we’re partnering to provide skate and beatmaking clubs to: Central Park Elementary, Completely Kids, Conestoga Elementary, Girls Inc., inCommon Development, King Elementary, Latino Center of the Midlands, Lewis and Clark Middle, Lothrop Elementary, Sherman Elementary and Wakonda Elementary.
We know when we invest in our youth, they invest in Nebraska. So we’re excited to launch — for the first time in Omaha — the Skate School experience we’ve provided at our Lincoln youth space The Bay for more than a decade. Starting Saturday, April 23, the awesome, accessible new Millwork Commons Skate Spot will be home to The Bay’s tiered Skate School program, which focuses as much on the soft skills learned through skateboarding as the technical ones. Open to youth ages 5-18, from absolute beginners to advanced, registration is now open for 8-week sessions. As in all Rabble Mill programming, no child will be turned away due to lack of means (see more below).
From learning how to push to understanding how to assemble a skateboard and skatepark etiquette, our skate instructors are trained to help students move through Skate School’s 4 levels. More importantly, they’re also awesome humans, charged with helping young skaters grow — on and off the board.
Here are just 4 of the social-emotional-learning (SEL) skills your child could learn through The Bay’s Skate School:
1- Grit
Try, fail. Try, fail. Learning to be OK with failure as you make sometimes slow, incremental progress toward a goal is inherent to skateboarding. And it’s critical to succeeding in life.
2 – Self-Confidence
Unlike many traditional team sports, skateboarding often becomes a lifestyle to those who take it seriously (ask any of our skate staff). While it’s also a great way to make lifelong friendships, skateboarding’s relative autonomy makes it ideal for young people to practice on their own, as they literally skate to and through life.
3 – Focus
It’s hard to watch a tablet when you’re on a skateboard. For parents looking for ways to get their kids’ heads out of screens, helping them fall in love with skateboarding is a great way to teach focus.
4 – Reinvestment
Literally a demonstrated skill necessary to graduate from The Bay’s Skate School, reinvestment is a component of Rabble Mill’s mission that can mean helping and encouraging a less-advanced skateboarder, cleaning your local park, or even (eventually) joining our team as a junior skate instructor!
ABOUT THE BAY’S SKATE SCHOOL
Open to K-12 youth, from beginner to advanced, registration is open now for 8-week sessions (April 23-June 18; July 9-Aug. 27) for Skate School at Millwork Commons’ Skate Spot. Beginners start at 9 a.m., with more advanced at 10 a.m. Registration includes a free skateboard and helmet rental (helmets and waivers* are required). No child will be turned away due to lack of means. Register your K-12 kid here (and consider sponsoring another)! *A waiver must be completed HERE by a parent/guardian prior to attendance.*
And if life makes scheduling ahead difficult, bring your little shredder to our Skate School at Lynch Park, starting Sunday, April 24. It’s drop-in style, with no pre-registration required!
ABOUT RABBLE MILL
Rabble Mill is a 501c3 nonprofit whose mission is to work with Nebraska youth statewide toward achieving the belonging, purpose, and upward mobility necessary to grow, achieve and reinvest in their community.
Through out-of-school-time programming in Omaha, Lincoln and statewide, we create opportunities for K-12 youth to fall in love with skateboarding, music and digital creation — teaching social-emotional and technical skills along the way. Our physical space in Lincoln, The Bay, is a 20,000-square foot youth center featuring a public indoor skatepark, a digital media lab, all-ages music venue and more. In Fall 2022, it welcomes its first class of 50 juniors and 50 seniors daily through the Bay High Focus Program, in partnership with Lincoln Public Schools. (Rabble Mill is currently exploring locations for The Bay in Omaha.)
Learn more at rabblemill.org.
