It took a few months for Elaine Nichols to work up the courage to attend a Syracuse Skate Gang meetup. As a new skater, she wanted to find people who liked skating and could teach her a thing or two. Nichols didn’t know what to expect.
But there was nothing to be worried about. When she rolled up to Onondaga Lake Park for her first meetup with roller skating group, Nichols was met with warm smiles and welcoming attitudes from skaters.
During her first meetup, Nichols recalls a member of the group skating up to her, introducing herself and fellow skaters, then remaining by her side as they skated the trails. Fast forward two years, she credits the group for changing her life.
“In my 40s, I’ve been meeting so many new friends. It opened my world to a bunch of new things that I’m interested in,” said Nichols. “It gave me a whole bunch of confidence to wear the tacky, sparkly clothes and give me more confidence to be who I truly am inside.”
At its core, Syracuse Skate Gang aims to create a welcoming environment for people of all bodies and all wheels. Founded in 2016 by Ariel Servadio, the group has successfully become a space for skaters of all levels to be themselves.
Servadio’s love for roller skating began after watching “Whip It,” starring Drew Barrymore and Elliot Page. The Skate Gang founder thought the sport was made up just for the movie, until she came across a flyer for a local derby league.
“I literally had the reaction like, roller derby is real. Roller derby is here. And I was super interested,” she said.
What really drew her in was the sport’s inclusive culture that embraced skaters of all body types and sexualities. That was something Servadio appreciated early in her skating journey as she came to terms with her queerness, she said.
Servadio began to teach classes and host meetups after another derby program went out of business.
The pandemic forced Servadio to stop her classes, after losing their practice space. But soon she…
Read the full article here
Leave a Reply