I am a 51-year-old mom of four kids – Olivia (28), Arielle (21), Finley (20), and Juliet (17). I have been married for 22 years. I have done so many things in my life for work but my passion is teaching the culinary arts. I am a chef and I just love cooking for other people. Little did I know the new adventure I was about to take amid this horrible pandemic. A few months ago, I got the idea to buy skates. I had not skated since I was a kid and thought that it sounded fun and nostalgic to skate again. I started skating upstairs on our laminate floor. I could remember the feeling of skating from my childhood but my body has changed so much since then. It was terrifying and a lot harder than it looked! I have had three neck surgeries so protective gear became a religion to me. My husband does land paddling and skateboarding so we went to a park and practiced outside. I fell so many times but the feeling of roller skating made me happy. February 11th, I posted on the Santa Clarita Community Page: I am a 51-year-old mama relearning how to roller skate. Is there anyone around who is a beginner who wants to form a skate group? PM me if you are interested. Within hours, I got over 100 responses and hundreds of “likes”. I started Skating Mamas of SCV on Facebook that day and we now have 1,000 members. It started as a mom’s group but not anymore. We have teens all the way to people in their 60’s. We are inclusive .. all genders welcome. No one needs to be a mom. We are keeping the name because it just stuck but we welcome anyone interested in skating or wanting to come and join. There have been several visitors who do not have skates but just want to check us out. The group is a private group so you have to look it up and there are membership questions that must be answered before approval. One of the rules is that you must wear a mask and social distance. This bothers some people but everyone has to agree to be accepted. We are not making any sort of political stand – just trying to stay as safe as possible. There is a tab in the group for events. Any member can post a skate date and other members say they are going or not. There are skate dates almost every day at various locations around the SCV. The biggest weekly skate dates are at 4 pm on Saturdays at the basketball courts at Central Park. We have a wonderful DJ who has volunteered to play music for us. At first, the main purpose was for me to find some newer skaters to skate with. But now it is to build a community of people who enjoy skating. If you ask those who have gone to a skate date, they will tell you that it is fun and wonderful. Everyone is smiling under the masks, listening to great old music, and feeling young and free. It brings back such wonderful memories for many of us of the ’70s, ’80s and 90’s when there were no cell phones or internet. When playing outside and skating (ice or roller) was just what you did. Lots of us feel proud of ourselves for relearning skating. We feel awestruck that there are so many other people locally who have skating in common. My biggest ask is for the City of Santa Clarita to build an outdoor skate rink. It is difficult to find places to skate that are flat, smooth, and lacking debris. Newer skaters are more likely to injure themselves on uneven surfaces or encountering debris. The group has proven that there are a lot of residents interested in skating. Skating is BACK. We just want a rink – a safe place to skate. As a side note, I SUCK at skating. It’s been slow going. But there are lots of skaters like myself relearning skating again.