Robert Brink - Writer

Baker Christmas Demo

March 29, 2006 | Skip To The Comments (2)

Baker Christmas Demo
By Rob Brink
The Skateboard Mag May 2006

Have you ever read The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein? It's about two friends—one is a young boy and the other, a tree. The young boy, throughout his life, comes to the tree for various things. The tree, having such unconditional love for the young boy joyfully gives him everything she can—from a place to climb and play as a young child, her apples to sell when he needed money, a place to make out with chicks as a teenage boy, branches to build a home for his family with, the her trunk to build a boat with for him to sail away in, and finally, years later, when nothing is left of the tree but a stump, the boy returns as an old man and he asks the tree for just a place to sit and rest. The tree, overjoyed to see her friend and be of service, gladly offers herself one last time, and she and the old man are happy together once again as the tale ends.

A dear friend gave me The Giving Tree for Christmas this year. I hadn't read it for at least ten or so years and flipping through the pages reminded me of the Baker Christmas demo I had attended a few day prior in Los Angeles…

Skateboarding, as a whole, it seems, is becoming more and more generous these days. There are charity events happening all over the place every year—as there should be with all the cash floating around the industry lately. It's a pretty cool thing considering, for the most part, skateboarders get the shit end of the stick and could easily adopt a nihilistic “fuck the world” policy towards society. But we know there's people out there who have it worse than us, and hosting and supporting charity events like this is the least that we, as an industry, subculture, whole—what have you—can do.

On December 18, donated canned goods resulted in food for the needy and each donator got a raffle ticket for quite a large product toss and giveaway. Baker, Emerica, KR3W, Active, RVCA, Spitfire, RVCA and Deluxe gave away over 40,000 dollars in presents. For anyone who doesn't know what forty grand worth of skate gear is—it's a freakin' lot.

Andrew Reynolds, Kevin “Spanky” Long, Leo Romero, Rammy Issa, Braydon Szafranski, Antwuan Dixon, Jeff Lenoce, Jim Greco, Eric were all on hand skating and signing for the fans. For two hours straight, following the demo, Dave Duncan shouted out numbers and kids got seriously hooked up. Once the darkness set in, the organized giveaway was abandoned, and for an hour straight, product was heaved out of the Active trailer to the crazed crowd below.

The Boss

In addition to all the product and the skaters and companies donating their time and talent, there was free food all day with Vans' Steve Van Doren manning the grill. The City of Los Angeles donated two blocks in Chinatown. People in Progress, an L.A. inner city intervention non-profit group provided added security. Heidi of SPAUSA has devoted herself to these inner city youths who came out for this amazing day for over eight years. Robin Fleming, Baker's brand manager (let's just call her Superwoman) went above and beyond the call of duty with Ari Evan Gold, Executive Director of The DooGood Conservatory to make this event possible and make loads of people smile this holiday season. Thanks to all who came, donated, skated, volunteered, worked hard and on and on and on. It felt good didn't it?

…And the tree was happy.

Here's some info about the event that came in from Robin Fleming after the article was finished and went to print:

Over $120,000 was donated, either through product or trade, from this event. $212 was raised for charity and over 3,000 cans of food were donated to the LA Downtown Women's Center on Christmas week! Thanks again to all who made it possible!

Now that you are done reading, check out the video from this demo!