Andy Tullis / The BulletinBenjermen Coffman, 11, from left, 50-50 grinds a box while his dad Kyle Coffman, 33, and brothers, Anthony Coffman, 9, and Jameson Coffman, 13, watch on during a mini skate session behind Aspect Board & Brew in Bend, Wednesday afternoon.

When Kyle Coffman and his friend threw Bend’s inaugural Go Skateboarding Day in 2013 at the Ponderosa Skatepark, they dealt with rain delays.

For skateboarders’ urethane wheels, smooth pavement, when wet, is as slick as a melting hockey rink. Tucked under a shelter, the 50-some people waited out the storm. When it let up, the skaters scrambled around the park, drying the concrete with T-shirts off their backs, squeegees and a leaf-blower.

“Time to get back to skating!” hollered co-organizer Alfredo Hernandez.

Such is the spirit of annual Go Skateboarding Day, a national event founded in 2004 by the International Association of Skateboard Companies, which is celebrated June 21, the second day of summer.

Coffman, 33, is organizing the third-annual shindig at Ponderosa Skatepark from noon to 6 p.m Tuesday.

There will be an after-party at Aspect Boards & Brews for skateboarders 21 and over. Raffle tickets will be sold to raise money for the Boys & Girls Club to equip its locations with skate obstacles.

Most cities host a Go Skateboarding Day event; Major ones such as New York and Los Angeles see thousands of skateboarders flood the streets, clogging traffic, similar to the cycling world’s Critical Mass.

In smaller cities, such as Bend, Go Skateboarding is mellower, sanctioned by the city and relegated to a public skatepark.

“Go Skateboarding Day is for the community to come out and celebrate skateboarding,” Coffman said.

Other than a skateboard contest, the laid-back skate jam will feature impromptu trick competitions, such as a highest-ollie contest. Skateboard companies donated decks, wheels and other shwag, which Coffman and Hernandez will raffle off and award to the day’s top rippers. The founders will emcee the event with a portable sound system through which they’ll funnel classic rock and songs from popular skateboard videos. The microphone and speaker will save Hernandez’s vocal cords, which he strained in previous years.

“I just want people to see what skateboarding is all about,” said Hernandez, 41. “I had a lot of friends who supported me in skateboarding; now that I’m a father, (I see skateboarding as) a great way to get kids outside, instead of just sticking them in front of a television, video game or tablet.”

Clare Gordon, Bend Park & Recreation District skatepark ambassador, said the department encourages Go Skateboarding Day and the grassroots that support it in Bend.

Sixteen-year-old Jonathan Wimberly and his friends are looking forward to Go Skateboarding Day. He learned of the unofficial holiday years ago on a skateboard company’s website.

“I would say it’s like Christmas for skateboarding,” he said, adding that he and his friends intend to put wheels to pavement around 8 a.m. “The skatepark is just packed all day; skaters get together and they want to meet new people.”

High Desert grassroots

Coffman and Hernandez previously drove to Go Skateboarding Day events in Eugene, Portland and California locations. When they got tired of traveling each year, they started the event locally.

“There is a huge skate community in Bend — from 2-year-olds to 60-year-olds,” Coffman said. Because Bend’s rough pavement makes skating in the streets slow-going and bumpy, local skaters gather at public skateparks such as Ponderosa, and the smattering of private mini ramps tucked into area garages and barns, and at the indoor Bearings Skateboard Academy. In the first two years, Coffman and Hernandez’s event drew 50 skateboarders; last year, 100 people showed up. This year Coffman said he expects more, hopefully drawing people from Portland and other areas outside Central Oregon.

Andre Antoniou, who owns Sol Sk8s, a skateboard shop on Bend’s east side, begrudges many aspects of the increasingly corporate skateboard industry. The 34-year-old shares the younger generation’s enthusiasm for the holiday, however — despite its corporate origins.

“We have holidays for everything else; why not have one for skateboarding?” Antoniou said. “Sure, we don’t need a special day to push a piece of wood down the street with our friends, and sure, corporations invented Go Skateboarding Day, but maybe they finally invented something good?” Sol Sk8s will host a Go Skateboarding Day “pre-game” mini-ramp competition 3 p.m. today.

Vicariously shredding

Coffman has lived in Bend since he was 7. Now 33, he’s skateboarded for over two decades. Also a father, Coffman shares his love of skateboarding with his three sons, all of whom are members of Aspect’s skateboard team.

Coffman, whose attentiveness as a father made him and his kids regular fixtures at the skatepark, caught Aspect owner Katie Sayers attention; she made him the shop’s team manager two years ago. He now directs the team’s practices at the park in preparation for the skateboard contests in which his sons and their teammates compete all over the country. As a member of the new Bend Oregon Skateboard Alliance — local skaters’ liaison to the parks and recreation department, Coffman has taken his sons on skatepark scouting missions across the Northwest and Midwest. This year, Coffman started his own company, Salty Skateboards — he hopes to have boards out by July.

Coffman knows his way around a skateboard, but he will not be showing off any time soon. He suffered a snowboard injury that crushed a bone in his lower back two years ago. He has since relearned to walk. Meanwhile, he’s satisfied with having a role in the skateboarding community.

“(This work) allows me to stay in the skateboard industry and do what I love,” he said. “I want to show my kids it’s okay to be passionate about something, and that you can make a career in skateboarding and snowboarding. You don’t just have to be a doctor or a lawyer.”

—Reporter: 541-617-7816, pmadsen@bendbulletin.com