COTTONWOOD SHORES, Texas — In Austin, there's a thriving skating community. But as you get farther outside of town, you see fewer skate parks. Still, there's one out west of the city that is growing.
It takes people to come together to build a community like that. At the Cottonwood Shores Skate Park, it also took this space.
But what happened last fall left those skating here, wondering what was next for them.
PHOTOS: Cottonwood Shores Skate Park
"So we were having issues in this park with graffiti, and this is one of the only lit parks in the area and we thought that the reason why it was being graffitied was because we had the lights on," said Andrea Stephens, the chairman of the Cottonwood Shores Parks and Rec committee.
In November, she helped make the decision to turn the skate park's lights off and only allow skating during the day. That is until the skaters came up with the idea to clean the park.
"Everything you see with gray paint pretty much had graffiti on it," said Joey Specht while standing over the grey park.
He helped organize the cleanup that took place in March.
"I put it on Instagram, like, on my story, and then all these dudes shared it and like two days later we had like 30 people out here," he said.
"You know, it's all them. They prove to us that this was important to them. And as the Parks and Rec committee, we were able to stand behind them and support them to go to the council and to the City and say, 'Hey, we really think the lights should be turned back on.' They've proven themselves," said Stephens.
"They worked with us pretty well once they realized we were serious," added Specht.
A community, keeping things clean to make sure they can keep skating in their special place.
"You'll never skate another one like this," said Specht.
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