Courtesy of Cowtown Skateboards
Audio By Carbonatix
When Kat Betsy became executive director of Cowtown S.K.A.T.E. in August, she was just beginning to understand what it meant to truly be a Skateboard Angel.
“(When you make) a $60 donation (to Skateboard Angel it) means a complete professional-grade skateboard for an underserved kid and that really opens the door for them in a variety of ways: all of the physical health benefits that come with skating, the social/emotional learning that’s tied to it, as well as learning about persistence and becoming more resilient people,” she explains.
For much of the last decade, Skateboard Angel, part of the philanthropic arm of local skateboarding purveyors Cowtown Skateboards, has been providing skateboards to Valley — and now national — youth thanks to donations from individuals and local partners. In 2024, for example, the organization was able to donate just under 1,800 ready-to-ride skateboards to children in Arizona and nationwide. The goal for 2025 is 2,000 boards.
Courtesy of Kat Betsy
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According to Betsy, though, Skateboard Angel is only about halfway to their goal with only a few days left before the end of the year.
“Right now, we’re at 982 (totals were at 1,015 at the time of this writing), so we are slowly but surely approaching that goal. This will really allow us to lock in being able to support all of the initiatives we have going into next year,” she says.
These initiatives include reaching more students by bringing on additional staff and providing more skateboards to more children.
Betsy is passionate about the benefits of skateboarding for the children her organization serves.
“(Skateboarding) helps the emotional health of children, as well as making friends. Everything within the social scene of it, when you really look beneath the surface a little bit there’s a lot of benefits to what a board can do for a kid,” she says.
For those interested in becoming a Skateboard Angel themselves, there are several options for helping put a skateboard in the hands of a child who may otherwise not be able to ride the concrete waves. Check out their website Cowtown’s website and Instagram profile. You can also visit local locations of Cowtown Skateboards, as well as a variety of partner sites like Cartel Coffee on Ash Avenue in Tempe and Bad Jimmy’s on Seventh Street in Phoenix.
