The Stettler Community Hall parking lot was a sea of vehicles on Saturday, Dec. 10 as Stettler and area community members came together for a great cause at the fourth annual "Kickflip into Chirstmas" event, held this year for the first time by the Stettler Skatepark Association (SSA) in conjunction with Gear Up Foundation (GUF).
With the same small group of organizers taking care of all the details to the tee, it was time to hand over the reins to another "capable organization," according to Heidi Fraser, one of the SSA board members.
Fraser said that Kickflip being one of the most successful events in the community, they didn't want to see the event disappear.
"But neither did we have the ability to keep doing it with such a small group of people," Fraser added. "Gear Up is a fantastic foundation, and relatively new, so we as an association agreed that they would be a great choice to hand this over to for next year."
Next year Gear Up will host the event exclusively.
This year Kickflip was a sellout and went as seamlessly as the organizers had hoped.
"With this being the fourth year, we had all the details nailed down pretty good," said Fraser. "We haven't really changed anything as it's worked so well in the previous years, but we're very fortunate to have had the help of Gear Up this year."
According to Fraser, it's a huge undertaking and with the same few consistently doing all the work since the beginning, it was getting to be too much for the little group.
"The evening meal was taken care of by Teresa's Catering, who did another amazing meal for us, followed by two comedians from Yuk Yuk's Calgary, as well as Klay the DJ suppling and organizing everything from the dinner music, photo booth, lighting and of course a dance to close out the night," explained Fraser.
With a sale of 350 tickets this year, the count has gone up by about 70 tickets from last year, according to Fraser.
"Whatever profit we make, we will be splitting it between us and Gear Up, with most of our funds being used towards the final phase of the skatepark," Fraser explained. "We partnered this year with Gear Up, because we needed help with the event."
After the wonderful supper, the entertainment began and as the evening rolled on the crowd burst into laughter from the incessant humour that the Yuk Yuks managed to pull off on the people.
"The Stettler Skatepark Association would like to thank all of our supporters over the past four years, and it's been an incredible journey to say the least," Fraser said. "We hope you will continue to attend this event and be supportive of Gear Up, just as you were of us."