Christchurch kids dream of skateboarding ramp coming true with help from strangers

By Chris Barclay, Star News

A desperate attempt to build a skateboard ramp in his driveway during the Covid-19 lockdown prompted a group of strangers to band together and make Jonty Abbott’s dream come true in a Christchurch backyard.

Steadfast with her children since the sudden death of her husband seven years ago, Lucy Abbott’s resilience was put to the test once again when Jonty opened his father’s toolbox in the driveway.

The 12-year-old boy’s goal during the Covid-19 lockdown was to build the skateboard ramp that Paul had committed to riding, before the builder took his own life.

“It was heartbreaking, it was so hard to watch. I told a friend, ‘I feel really sad, Jonty is there and I just wish his dad was there to help him right now,'” recalled the mother of two.

“I said, ‘It was really sad today.’ Obviously, in the confinement you reflect a lot about your life, you have a lot of time to think.

“I saw the frustration in him because he couldn’t do it and I felt helpless, I couldn’t ask anyone for help because I was level 4 and I’m the type of person who really wouldn’t want to ask for help like that.”

Fortunately, her friend Nicole Parker knew a builder, and Dan Clark had forged industry connections through the Hey Bro – The Kiwi Brotherhood Facebook page, a forum focused on supporting men’s mental health since April 2019.

read more
• Strangers help the heartbroken father to hear his late wife’s voice again
• Strangers help stimulate a cancer activist
• Strangers in our life: why we need them

Once Clark posted about Jonty’s disappointment, a group of strangers soon found common ground in a St Albans backyard that is now missing a trampoline and most of the vegetable garden.

“I thought it was just going to be a little thing,” Abbott said, spreading his arms. “Not 7 meters in the backyard.”

The half-pipe quickly took shape once Covid restrictions allowed it; Jonty tested it on the road on a scooter late last month.

The volunteer builders and “brotherhood” guys marveled at his every move; Abbott still shakes his head.

“It’s like a group of angels just stepped in, take over, make dreams come true and really change Jonty’s life,” he said.

“I have never met so many people in my life who have been estranged from their own families and their own lives.

“Many of these people have also had similar losses and they said to me, ‘Lucy, this makes us feel good too.’

“There was a guy who drank beer all day and then he left, and no one knows who he was. It helped a bit, but it wasn’t about that. He was probably a guy who knew something good was going on and wanted to be a part of she “.

Abbott said the “brotherhood” deserved more exposure.

“I read your page, it is an incredible community of men who provide understanding and support, experience and friendship … from anything in their lives, from mental health to how to do something around the house,” he said.

“It is a place where people can reach and I hope that more people, more men will come to this group.

“Construction supply company Carters and skateboard stores Propaganda and Boardertown were among the many” incredible “contributors – Kaiapoi builders, twins Luke and Jake Waghorn, coordinated the construction project.

“We lost a guy who had worked for us for a year or two to suicide last year and we lost a guy before that too, so it was a moving story for us,” explained Luke, who found the Abbotts through from Clark’s. plea for help.

“It was quite humiliating to finish it, it was a great trip home thinking ‘It was good to be able to help with the situation’.

“Mental health has always been a priority for us. In construction, it’s a male-dominated industry where the idea is to be a tough bone, buckle up, let go, not talk and not talk about it.”

Jonty kept to himself when the Star visited him, leaving Mom to detail the effect of the wooden ramp on her youngest son.

“He feels on top of the world, he feels like the coolest kid there is,” he said, as Jonty gradually continues to work to get over Dad’s departure.

“People don’t really understand a death like that, it never goes away. It never, never goes away,” Abbott said.

“The children have not been old enough to understand anything. Now they are getting into those years of questions and they really need a parent around.”

– Star News