I may have posted in the past year about trying to get my foot in the door of the skateboarding industry, and I’m here to tell you I haven’t given that up. I did a paid campaign before the holidays to give away a free deck, and handed out a few more besides. Most recently I’ve come up with a brand I’ll be trademarking soon, and I’m officially putting Lucas B. Melo on as my first sponsored skater. He hails from Brazil and practices freestyle. With some luck, hard work, and support, the aim is to get him into some AM level contest. The ultimate goal is to create an avenue for underprivileged skaters to not only participate in skating, but potentially thrive and make a career out of it. Lucas is the first to set out on that journey, and Brazil is the jumping off point. To make this clear, I’m on a shoe string budget. I had to move back in with my Mom, I have no nine to five as backup, and I only have a grand a month to live on, and support this project with. That support includes the salary I offered Lucas, which is the equivalent of a month’s wages in his country. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about my personal cost, I’m complaining about the fact that I can’t afford to pay him more. A month’s wages in Brazil is only just over $200 CAD. If I could, I’d pay him a real salary, but I have rent and the like to worry about as well. It’s in light of these facts that I’m now considering a Patreon page, solely to increase what I’m able to pay Lucas, and improve the platform to lift future skaters out of poverty. I’ll be setting it up in the coming months, and while I normally refrain from asking for any kind of assistance, I would appreciate it greatly if you helped to spread the word. I’ll update here with details leading up to the launch, between the usual torrents of mediocre free verse. Thank you for bearing with me, I realize this was a long and rambling affair.

Warm regards,

J. C. Lloyd