Skate Coastal seeks to foster community through youth skateboarding
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Nixon Menchaca-Aguiluz is a blur of motion as he flies around a skate park.
He has the long hair of a skateboarder, even if his body hasn’t quite caught up yet. Nixon is just 4 years old — he turns 5 next month — yet the Costa Mesa resident has already been skateboarding for more than a year.
“He’s at the skate park four days a week, three to four hours a day,” said Nixon’s mom, Desiree Menchaca. “He loves it … He just likes learning all new tricks. He looks up to these big kids.”
Nixon’s enthusiasm for the sport is matched by nearly everyone in attendance on this particular Tuesday morning. Skate Coastal is holding one of its summer camps, at Tustin Legacy Skatepark, and about 30 young skateboarders ages 4 to 12 are in attendance.
There’s plenty of free skating, but the campers also play “Red light, green light” and can win T-shirts. During one break, coach Adriel Montes tries to teach them how to do the Macarena.
This is the community that Skate Coastal founder Liz Anderson envisioned when she started the program in 2024.
Anderson, a Corona del Mar High graduate and Newport Beach native who now lives in Mission Viejo, is a mother of three. Her oldest son Finn, 10, is an up-and-coming skateboarder and a Skate Coastal regular.
Liz Anderson taught abroad in Thailand for several years and holds a master’s degree in education. When she became a mother, she said she knew she wanted to work again, but didn’t want to give up time with her kids.
“I wanted to start a skate program that was founded from an educational perspective, like childhood development, but taught by career skaters who would serve as role models for the kids,” Anderson said. “Something that I’m proud of is that ... all of my coaches are wearing a strapped helmet all of the time. I think it’s so important [to encourage] traumatic brain injury awareness. If the coaches aren’t wearing helmets, the kids don’t want to wear them.”
Skate Coastal operates 15 after-school programs throughout Orange County, but is expanding to 20. The beginner-friendly program is also contracted for camps at the skate park in Tustin and at Costa Mesa Skate Park, also known as Volcom Skate Park, which recently began renovations. It also comes to Newport Coast, where Anderson said Skate Coastal brings ramps and rails and sets up on location.
Anderson said she also recently acquired a permit to start holding competitions, which would be an exciting new chapter in the quickly growing program.
Skate Coastal also offers sponsorships for children who might need financial support.
Surfside Sports, a surf, skate and snowboard shop located in Costa Mesa’s east side, has been a key partner.
“We were on the same page about how there’s a bunch of skaters in this community, and it just kind of needs to be brought together,” said John Gilleland, the buyer for the skateboard department at Surfside. “I think it’s super-sick how they support the kids, and we’ll give discounts to everyone that’s coming in and buying new gear and shoes and boards and helmets and pads. We just try to help them out, and they help us out by pushing us on social media and supporting us.”
Credible coaches are also key — and all are extensively background checked, Anderson added.
Montes is a lead supervisor for the program. He lives in Huntington Beach, where he won the Basic Bowl skateboarding competition in April.
“We don’t see a lot of people really doing this around here,” said Montes, 27. “There’s other skate lessons companies, but they mainly do skateboarding lessons at schools. We do too, but as far as summer camps go, we’re kind of the main skate lessons camp to be doing it ... Skate Coastal is more like a family than anything, really.”
Montes and Anderson also recently took a 10-day skateboarding trip to the Philippines. They brought with them more than 200 pounds of skateboards and merch from community sponsors to a group of children who lacked the resources, if not the enthusiasm.
“The most advanced kids that you see here, imagine them having no shoes and no helmet and no skateboard,” Anderson said. “They’re all sharing one helmet, one skateboard … We did a huge skate competition for these kids who are super-advanced, and it was just so, so special. It’s the type of place where we would give $10 to buy new shoes and they would burst into tears. It was very impoverished, and just seeing their determination and grit was just the most inspiring, rewarding life experience.”
Back home, Skate Coastal hopes to inspire more young kids like Nixon Menchaca-Aguiluz to pick up the sport. His younger brother, who’s an infant, may be on a skateboard before too long.
An Art Coastal one-hour art class also is offered for the kids after the skate camps conclude for the day.
“We do creative, fun skateboarding art,” Montes said. “We paint skateboards, we make shirts, we make hats, we do all sorts of fun stuff.”
The program also tries to foster a sense of community through meet-ups on Thursday nights, and potlucks on Fridays. A coffee truck is available for under-caffeinated parents, also serving lemonade to the campers.
Senia Negrete’s son J.J., who just turned 9, has been a dedicated Skate Coastal attendee. The Negretes live in Long Beach, where Senia said her son started skateboarding during the coronavirus pandemic as she still wanted him interacting with other kids.
“He also skateboards competitively, but we still come here,” Senia Negrete said. “This is what skateboarding is about, friendships and community. It’s not just about competing. He loves the coaches, he loves just everybody here. Liz has set up such a wonderful little community, of the kids and the parents.”
