thelandofplenty.org

Skateistan keeps doing the thing, click image above for a USA today article filling you in on the latest. Yeah Ollie! Some highlights:

“At least 280 children come each week, 150 of them girls, he says.”

“A former head of the Afghan national police, Aghbar says through a translator that Skateistan is “a revolution in sports” for Afghanistan and “an opportunity to raise up children in a better environment,” countering drugs and terrorism.

“The only solution that leads Afghanistan toward peace and stability is sport,” he says.

Skateboarding, please believe it.

Here are some photos from the LOP fundraiser put on by Streets of Venice skateshop in the Westfield Mall in Culver City on Father’s Day 2010. Extra thanks to Toks & Hit and Run (for help with the t-shirts), Selenia Rios (best barrel* girl ever!), the Streets of Venice crew and Chuck Martinez from Westfield, the LOP interns (Han Su, Zane, Mikey, and Collin, see video below) and the Galvans family for the support. I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank Billie Stone and Rob Meinhardt for all of the hard work, and welcome them to the LOP family. They are our new business/product managers and they are ruling. Check the shots for some of their handiwork. Hell yeah! See you next time, Westfield! (*a barrel girl is apparently an Australian term for like a promo model or hostess or what have you. Billie is an Ozzie! LOP world wide!)  -GS

Billie Stone and the official event poster

Selenia Rios, barrel girl extraordinaire, with a Billie Stone original

Homies watching the skate jam. Streets of Venice has a mini ramp in the shop. Uh oh.

More Stone and Meinhardt work. Coming soon to a store near you…

Photographer Ryan Rigsby -with his photo, that was raffled off. Thanks bro… chomp

Photo winner from the Galvan’s family. Chomp chomp chomp

Hardest working interns in the biz. Han Su, Mikey, and Collin… not pictured, Zanye

Chuck Martinez -from Westfield presents a prize to another Galvans. Selena and Rob back him up. (um, I think I need one of those black shirts. Rob’s hat too. Represent.)

Ok, this is a lot of photos, click on the thing to see more…

Read the rest of this entry »

The Father’s Day fundraiser (see below) went off, and the LOP interns were in the house showing their support, lending a hand, and shredding the street course and ramp. Check out this vid from LOP team member Han Su Kim:

Thank you, gentlemen. Photos and details to come soon!

Party People:

The fine folks at Streets of Venice Skate Shop in Culver City are throwing a fundraising event this Sunday, Father’s Day, and the LOP are the proud beneficiaries! Here are the details:

The 1st annual Westfield Culver City Skatefest & Father’s Day Celebration takes place on Sunday, June 20 from 12pm-5pm.

The day will be full of great activities for the entire family including: an outdoor street course, half pipe exhibitions by skateboarding pros, as well as safety demonstrations and instruction.  In addition, check out the rock climbing wall and video gaming lounge by Best Buy.

Child ID Kit and car safety seat inspections will also be provided by Kids Are 1st and the California Highway Patrol.

This year’s event benefits the Land of the Plenty Skateboard Foundation.  Prizes include great items from Best Buy, Vans, Streets of Venice and more. Raffle tickets will be sold for $5.

The event takes place on Level 1 and 2 near Best Buy, as well as on the Rooftop Parking Structure on the south side of the center.

For more information, please call the Management Office at 310.390.7833

So basically, it’s going to go off. You should be there, yo! The LOP interns will be in the house, ramp and street course skating will be going down (they have a ramp inside the skate shop, and the mall is putting together a street course outside) and there will be some LOP decks on display, and tons of good prizes to win if you enter the raffle. And why wouldn’t you enter the raffle? That’s how we are going to raise funds for the LOP, so we can further our mission and continue our programming. Tight, tight, tight, as they say. Anyway, be there, do it for Dad.

If you’ve seen the new LOP homepage then you’ve seen the handiwork of the young skaters from the Cesar Chavez Sk8 Club at Cesar Chavez Elementary School in San Francisco, CA. Philip von Furstenberg and Rafael Nunez, the heads of the program, contacted us a while back and sent this message:

We are a small skate club of 50 kids and 4 volunteers at an inner-city school in San Francisco. We started a skate program 2 years ago. Since then we have built a half pipe and 2 quarter pipes. We are working on our street section with a pile of rails that has yet to be built. We are looking for any kind of donation from you to support the growth of our program. We would like to expand to 75 kids this year, but we have almost zero dollars to work with. Please let me know how we can collaborate to increase our program.

The crew were recipients of some of the boards from our 2009 Great Skate Giveaway, and we sent hand painted boards for the kids to skate, as well as boards and tshirts to raffle to raise funds. It was a great situation all around, and we’d like to express our thanks to the people who donated money to the Skate Giveaway to help us with shipping costs. As you can see from the images on the homepage and below, the kids were psyched! Thanks, Phillip, for letting us be a part of your program. Shred on…

If you would like to find out more about how you can support the Cesar Chavez Sk8 Club, contact:

Philip von Furstenberg ACSW, PPSC
Cesar Chavez ES
825 Shotwell Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
Cell (510) 326-3467
Fax (415) 695-5843

Our homie at Solitary Arts, Yong-Ki Chang, has been working hard to raise money to help his friend Kenny Brimer, who has been diagnosed with leukemia, and to expand awareness of leukemia in general. He recently finished a benefit shirt for Kenny with Bad Brains and ROIR records to sell through the Solitary Arts site: two shirts, and only 48 of each were made… so check it out and do what you can to help. We got that PMA!

Check the Solitary Arts Blog here…

Check the team page for the latest news: Han-Su Kim, Claremont shredder, is the latest addition to the LOP skateboard team! Yeah, Han-Su! This man has been down forever and skates smooth like butter. Welcome to the team, homie.

From our main man Doug Miles:

The annual renegade riot skateboard competition
and concert known as the infamous
APACHE SKATE BLAST will take place
once again on the San Carlos APACHE Nation
in San Carlos, AZ on March 27th.
With heavy support from VOLCOM Stone Age,
IPATH , e’s, New Era, Obey, AZPX, Altamont, Skatebook,
The Land Of Plenty, Freshpark
and other  “friends of Apache”,
with  over 500 years
of American history echoing through the hills.
( not your mom’s skate comp)
An  all day skate comp WITH LIVE
music featuring
JFA, Dephinger, Deborah Iyal ( ex-Romeo Void)
Miracle Dolls,,S.O.L., and more brings skate
tribes from Orange County and across the great divides
and outer edges of America to the land of the
APACHE for a day of stokativity unlike any other.

LOP soldier Aryeh Kraus gets much-deserved props in his recent Skateboard Mag Minute, check it out: