Skate Cape May 2011

Welcome to Northfield!

Thank you, thank you very much.

Oh, you're very welcome.

I'm going to divide this post into two sections, the skate and the lemonade stand. Well, its not like I've organized it in any other way, I just never mention it specifically.

Well now I did. And now the post might even be a little bit easier to read!

Good afternoon gentlemen and gentleladies!

I personally woke up absolutely exhausted, and just trying to carry through the morning was quite a task for me. Even making waffles was quite a challenge.

Mine came out awful. They were torn all over the place.

I blame myself.

After the skate started, everything seemed to get a lot better. I was in some pain for the first time these seven days, but it eased off and I started to feel a little bit more energetic.

Meanwhile, Danny was still annoyed that he had to ride his bike and also because of the pain with pushing on longboard, but he seemed quite fine with pedaling the way. Even though it is on bike, its still good that he's pulling through with the distance with me!

Three guys (actually two and a lady, (Brad, Jay, and Lindsay)) from Original Skateboards came down to film us. Did you like that double parenthesis job I did there? Fancy.

Anyway, they got some super wicked footage (but not really) of us pushing up hills and cruising in static positions while cars struggled to pass us by. Whoopee!

After about a little more than halfway through our skate for the day, Danny's bike actually got a flat tire, so he decided to ride out for the last 10 miles on longboard, even though it hurt him quite a bit. He'll be back on his bike tomorrow though!

We then arrived in Northfield, where I took the super picture above!

[Now for the lemonade stand portion!]

We set up and hung out for a little while with the Original team, and for the most part we were messing around skating in the parking lot as the stand was generally slow, but with many people interested! As it turned out, a local paper in Northfield (The Current) actually ran a story about us in the paper the Thursday before, so we had some people come down for us! And we also got a great turnout! We had a $200 single donation, and made a total of $365 today! Which is great considering we only made slightly above $100 at the last two stops!

Thank you Northfield!

We also got onto NBC40, a local channel for Atlantic City! It was a very short spot and it didn't even include our website, what our event was even called, or even Danny, but its nice that they took the time to come out. I guess.

Here's the link: http://www.nbc40.net/news/14258/

We packed after the hot day of great success and headed out to our hotel, which was a five mile skate away. Actually, we ended up leaving a little bit early because of the distance but also because there were some clouds approaching that didn't look too nice and forgiving.

As I end this post, I'm just going to recap that I'm still behind on the video!

And we actually have no video content as for yesterday or the day before, aside from video logs we made each night. Though when the Original Skateboards video of us comes out, I'll be sure to post a link here!

Tomorrow (August 17th), we'll be in Sea Isle City at Heritage Surf Shop at 3700 Landis Avenue, so be sure to check us out! We'll probably stay there until 7:00 because we're staying at a place right on the corner next to it!

Ta ta for now!
- Edwin

$1050

The above is a new chart I made for the stand! It shows how many miles we've skated one which legs of the journey on which days, as well as the amount of money we've raised at each stand (as well as the totals!)

Sorry that this post is late! Especially as I was sort of supposed to make it yesterday!

But in all honesty, yesterday's skate and lemonade stand left little to talk about. We raised a total of $111 over the course of the entire day, which we can pretty much accredit to the weather (since very few people actually came for Ritas).

There was also very little passing traffic unfortunately.

And to make matters worse, we were completely beat!

We made great time, arriving early to our stand by about half an hour, at around 2:30. (even though I forgot to tweet that we were actually there until about 4pm).

Even so, the day was very not interesting. Mind you, it wasn't boring, but it was simply repetitive and mellow of a skate (bike for Danny! and to remind you, he's also biking for the next two days because of some hip injury and strong pain).

There was a lot of pushing.

And I mean a lot.

The terrain has been getting flatter and flatter as we move south, which is unsurprising. But it wasn't exactly perfectly flat; rather, it was always either flat or the slightest bit uphill. And even so we found ourselves pushing significantly more than we normally do.

As for the stand, the traffic for our stand has also been getting slower and slower.

It also started raining, and because nobody was coming to our stand, we decided it best to head to the hotel, and leave the stand early.

We made a video log, but you won't get to see it for a while! Mind you, I'm still a bit behind on the videos (sorry!).

Anywho, I'll be writing our blog post for our day today (Hammonton to Northfield) in a few minutes!

Toodleoo!

- Edwin

We spent the second half of the morning (about 5 miles!) on a completely dirt road with no feasible way to go around without adding a great many miles. It was a bit frustrating but we managed anyway! Pushing on a dirt and gravel road was certainly not a fun experience.

There was rain all afternoon, so we had to push through the rain for about 10 miles. It ranged from a small drizzle to a great downpour, so we donned our ponchos to skate. Our shoes and boards were completely covered and soaked with water but no matter, we skated on!

While we were skating on the road in the rain, we were actually stopped by the police. Except we were stopped because the officer actually found out what we were doing and wanted to tell us that we were doing a good job! Which was awesome!

He also made a donation and we gave him a shirt for his support!

We got to the Rita's of Hillsborough when the rain stopped, and set up our tent!

Colin Taylor (our magnificent sponsor manager!) was there, and he came to hang out and deliver a care package from Red Bull, containing a six pack of Red Bull! Very awesome!

While there, we met up with a reporter from the Star Ledger, who took video interviews of us all during our stand and took a lot of footage as well! It was great fun having her around!

Later on as the stand was coming to a close, I went to skate down to Prime Skate Shop, where I met a bunch of awesome skaters who had read about what we were doing! It was pretty awesome seeing them there, and they helped us by hooking me up with a helmet since mine was a bit old the foam was actually about to fall out.

Its a really cool shop so if you're ever in the Hillsborough area, definitely go and check them out!

I skated back to our stand and helped move the lemonade materials into the next car, and it turned out we actually raised a great amount of money!

A lot of people came specifically for us since hearing about what we were doing in the news, and many came to buy tshirts or even just lemonade! And there were many donations by those who didn't know what we were doing already!

Even so, it was raining, and the day was rather slow, which is why we were surprised that we made about $320!

Be sure to check us out as we skate out to Hightstown tomorrow! (August 13th!)

We'll be stopping at the Rita's sometime in the afternoon and staying there until about 6:30pm! You can find us at 9 Princeton Hightstown Road, Hightstown, NJ.

Be sure to check out our video logs and video montages from each day! They can be found at http://www.youtube.com/SkateCapeMay!

Have a great night!

- Edwin

Apologies for the lack of post yesterday!

But to sum up what did happen, we were visited by Jessica from FiOs 1 News. It was all very sudden, but all was good and the shoot was easy and a lot of fun! We even got her on one of our longboards! Below is a small picture of our trio:

Expect to see our spot sometime tomorrow (Wed, August 4) on FiOS 1 News! I'll be seeing if I can actually get a clip off of their website and post it on our youtube channel.

Tomorrow, we'll be doing an interview with WMBC, and I'll be posting more information as to what will be happening with that!

Also tomorrow, we'll be doing a radio interview with WRNJ at 5:40, so be sure to tune in!

We're also working on getting Skate Cape May shirts done by a local company based in Chester, called Branded Screen Printing. There'll only be around 50 shirts made! When they get made, I'll be sure to update you guys on it. I'll also be setting up a shirt shop with Spreadshirt, so you can purchase said shirts online! (A portion of the online shirt sale will be given to us, and we'll be donating all of such money).

We still need some places to stay in each town but Newton (Chester, Hillsborough, Hightstown, Browns Mills, Hammonton, Northfield, Sea Isle City, and Cape May), and if anyone is able to help out at all just contact us at contact@skatecapemay.com!

I'll see you kids later!

- Edwin

We've got a lot of progress today, especially with publicity!

Very cool! I admit that I was a bit nervous (well actually very nervous) for this, especially since I didn't actually know it would be for television! But thanks to Dawn and Danny (cameraman, not skater!) for making it an easy experience for Danny and I. It was actually surprisingly pleasant!

Hopefully we've been able to reach out to plenty of people and spread awareness of our cause!

If you're reading this now, Thank you once again Dawn and Danny!

There's still been quite an aftershock from the original Star Ledger article, as many more people are requesting interviews and we're also receiving many emails from wonderful people just showing their support, and I'm extremely grateful for that!

This next week will most certainly be a busy one, especially in preparation for Skate Cape May itself.

Aside from the media, I've also made some changes to the site itself. You might have noticed the new twitter widget on the side-bar, as I've created a Twitter for Skate Cape May for us to tweet of all of our doings and during our trip itself! Be sure to follow us!

You can find our twitter at http://www.twitter.com/SkateCapeMay

I've also created a Youtube Channel (which is how I uploaded the video above).

You can find it at http://www.youtube.com/SkateCapeMay

Danny's also made a grand suggestion to determine where we'll be staying. He's suggested that we use an RV to stay in at each stop, and I'm seriously considering it as it seems like a good idea. But we'll have to lock it in later this weekend, so keep posted; we may still need places to stay.

We've still got a lot ahead of us, but things are looking pretty good.

Until tomorrow,

- Edwin