How Phoenix Business Cowtown Skateboards Is Giving Boards to Deserving Kids (Hint: It's You)

Christmas is officially over when December 25 calls it a night, but with Cowtown Skateboards’ annual giving program, you can still be an angel through the rest of the month.

Their Skateboard Angel program is in its sixth year, and its premise is the same as always: You can pop by the local chain's four Valley locations or visit the website and buy a skateboard for $60. As the purchaser, you don’t take the board home, however. Instead, the Cowtown folks donate it to a child in need or to partner organizations they work with that facilitate similar missions for getting kids rolling.

This year’s goal is to move 2,000 boards.

Trent Martin, one of Cowtown’s owners, emphasizes that what you’re getting is a quality product. “These are quality boards we sell in the shop — not something you’d find at Walmart or a toy store. It’s the good stuff.”

Laura Martin and Ed Cox are the other two owners, and together, this team has spent a quarter of a century devoted to the needs of skaters, from selling boards and related goods to hosting and sponsoring events, helping the city with skatepark projects, and focusing on community members in need.

It’s that last activity that drove the team to create a nonprofit wing, Cowtown S.K.A.T.E, to give kids the opportunity to reap the benefits being on wheels brings, including physical and mental health and providing a place to develop and foster positive relationships with peers and mentors.

Skateboard Angel is the nonprofit’s signature program, and it has benefited several local organizations. Skate After School is one. They partner with schools to provide skateboarding instruction to underserved youth. Mercy House is another one. Their mission is to help people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.

On the day we spoke with Martin, he had spent the earlier part of the day at the Mercy House holiday celebration. “They were giving out all these skateboards and gifts to kids in their community, and they presented us with a plaque for being a community partner.” The kids’ excitement is what affected him the most.

“It was awesome to get a firsthand look at kids getting skateboards and then riding around. They interacted with each other about where they were going to ride and what they wanted to learn. Seeing that was really exciting," he says.

Discovering new beneficiaries hasn’t been hard. “When we’ve had skateboards to donate, we reached out to friends for opinions and discovered so many cool nonprofits, community centers, and just good people doing good things. It’s great how it has organically grown,” Martin says.

The Skateboard Angel program isn’t just for metro Phoenix recipients anymore. The team has partnered with peer shops around the U.S. to allow them to get boards to organizations serving kids in need in their respective regions. Cowtown chose shops that align with its mission. “It’s easy to give away skateboard to anybody,” Martin says, “but what makes this program different is that we are all providing skateboards for kids that don’t have an opportunity to get them otherwise. And every shop involved has that in mind.”

The Cowtown crew says they’re blown away each year by the generosity they see, from someone buying one deck to a family that donates every year and upped their purchase in 2022. “It’s amazing,” Martin says. “They donated 200 skateboard angels this year. Wow.”

Some local businesses have also gotten on board. “The Churchill is doing 100, which is incredible,” Martin says. The downtown venue, he adds, has been a great partner in other ways, like helping them with a pop-up skatepark they did for Go Skateboarding Day.

Getting boards in the hands of kids is just the beginning of what this group hopes to accomplish. Another initiative, Safe Skate Spots, also has benefits for kids at the front of its mission.

“Instead of building giant skateparks that are these multimillion-dollar beasts that take forever to get funding for and build, we want to create spots in multiple places in the city that make them skateable — different, unique spots in the city in every park around Phoenix and Tempe," he says.

“The most important thing,” Martin tells us, “is getting kids skateboards so they can have an outlet. They need something that lets them get out of their head space, get outside and enjoy life, and skateboarding provides that."

To donate or learn about the program, visit skateboardangel.com.