Today we’re excited to share a personal story from one of our new members on a mission to bring something fun, exciting and meaningful back to Frederick families.
Photo Courtesy Shauwney’s Skate Palace
Meet Shauwney’s Skate Palace
The Skate Palace story
My name is Shauwney Anderson.
My family and I are currently working on opening a roller skating rink here in Frederick, Maryland for our community.
About a year ago, I began this journey of mine that was put on the back burner for almost 30 years. I’ve been an avid roller skater since the age of 4. I was introduced to roller skating not in a rink, but on my mom’s kitchen floor when I was a toddler. My cousin and I would roller skate in the kitchen for hours on end until my mom finally got sick of us and took me to an actual rink. And that’s where it all began… my love for the sport.
I taught my daughter how to skate when she was 4 years old, and we still skate together to this day; this is an activity that will stay with you for a lifetime, provided that you have the avenues to exercise this talent ( check us out on Instagram and YouTube – shameless plug).
Over the years I’ve seen almost every roller skating rink that I have patronized closed down. Wheel-a-While, Rockville, Congressional, Rockville, and Great Skate, Gaithersburg to name a few. I couldn’t understand why something that was so much fun, and something that I considered to be one of the simplest ways to lose weight and KEEP IT OFF, was disappearing. Everywhere around me.
In my late teens, when Great Skate closed, I started a petition, and even wrote a business plan to try and keep it open. I told myself then that I would own my own rink. And I need to own that, because I understand just how important roller skating is.
The older that I became, the more I began to realize that roller skating was and is a predominantly African American past time, and this may have been why, among many other reasons that roller skating rinks almost always never survive in certain areas of the country, for more reasons than I care to mention here (watch the documentary mentioned below, and remember the part about changing the stigma?).
But roller skating is a sport that everyone can and do enjoy. Young, old, black, white, brown, green, indigo. You get my point. My intent is to change the narrative – the stigma that comes with this sport that has reinvented itself since the 1800’s.
After watching the documentary United Skates, I learned a lot. I suggest that everyone take a moment and watch it. It is a powerful documentary that delves into the history of roller skating, and the African American community.
Roller skating is an active sport for everyone. Some people believe that roller skating has become irrelevant since it began to gain momentum in the 70’s with the disco era. This is simply not true. There are avid roller skaters across the country and the world who still love roller skating, they just do not have a venue.
As Reggie Brown from the United Skates documentary stated, “Roller skating has continued to survive partly because of the African- American community and our ability to open up the culture to others who want to learn how. ”
Photo Courtesy Shauwney’s Skate Palace
Why does Frederick need roller skating?
There is no other roller skating rink within 30 miles of Frederick, and we can’t wait to change that.
This venture began and is solely about the community. We want to bring a roller skating venue back to Frederick, so that people from all walks of life can enjoy, reminisce on childhood memories, bring back the nostalgia of those Friday and Saturday nights at the rink, and bring back that wholesome community togetherness by sharing space with others that just want to skate and have a blast doing it -all while meeting other community members that you may not have known could roller skate!
Photo Courtesy Shauwney’s Skate Palace
How can people help bring skating back to Frederick?
Support Shauwney’s Skate Palace by attending an upcoming event, donating to their cause and shopping their store.
Frederick Chamber Insights is a news outlet of the Frederick County Chamber of Commerce. For more information about membership, programs and initiatives, please visit our website.