SHAPE Skate Foundation at Jackalope Festival in Virginia Beach

By: Maxwell Brothers

This past weekend from May 29th to the 31st, SHAPE Skate Foundation was present at Jackalope Festival, an extreme sports event held in Virginia Beach that attracts professional skaters, BMX riders, motocross riders and more from across the world to compete in a variety of contests, hosted by Monster Energy. Among the contestants was Imoh Ekasi-Otu, the founder and president of SHAPE Skate Foundation, who was invited to participate in the Best Trick and the Men’s Open Street Qualifiers over the weekend.

While Imoh competed, the rest of the SHAPE team held it down at our vendor booth, where we represented the foundation and brought attention to our cause and mission. We also were able to sell a wide array of merchandise including our various T-shirts, fingerboards, and skate decks as well. We would like to thank everybody who donated or purchased merchandise as all of the proceeds go towards furthering our mission of building resilient communities through skateboarding.

We also had the chance to network with other organizations and foundations that work in a similar space of community development through skateboarding, and we look forward to the chance to further partner with these organizations and work together to achieve our goals!

Another highlight of the weekend was getting to meet legendary pro skaters, such as Chris Hosoi, who invented the famous vert trick, the Christ Air, as well as Kareem Campbell, who appeared in the original Tony Hawk Pro Skater games and also invented the trick known as the Ghetto Bird. Chris Hosoi was also a guest speaker for Pros Being Bros, a Bible Study group led by and for professional skateboarders by Dave Jonsson, a pro skater himself who has been preaching for 17 years and counting.

It was genuinely exciting to be around so many people who are passionate about skateboarding in the same place, and incredible to witness the quality of skateboarding that took place during the contests from skaters of all ages and backgrounds. SHAPE plans to return to Jackalope next year to continue spreading its wings as an organization and looks forward to supporting our founder and president Imoh in the competitions as well!