Step aside, Tony Hawk * -- a tenacious Cardston mom has taken over as skateboarding hero of teens throughout her town.

An $89,000 skateboard park is due to open in weeks thanks to cash raised by seemingly tireless mom Paula Anderson, her teenage son and some of his friends.

Anderson sought a solution to a long-running dispute in the town of 3,500, located 210 km south of Calgary, where people were complaining about children using streets and parking lots to skateboard.

But the youths had nowhere else to go, so she dedicated the past two years to building them one.

The 35-year-old mother of four, and her 14-year-old son Colby and his friends, raised $39,000 -- hitting up community groups, collecting donations and holding auctions.

"She's awesome," Colby said about his mother. "She's not normal, some people don't support us very much and she just did."

They also obtained a $25,000 grant from the town and another $25,000 from the province to construct a skateboard park in place of one of the town's tennis courts, near the public pool.

The equipment arrives next week and the skate park will open days later. "We just wanted to find (children) a home and make them and the rest of the community happy," said Anderson, a teacher's assistant at Cardston's junior high.

This article was originally entitled "Mom gets wheels * in motion for skate park", and was found at http://www.canoe.ca/CalgaryNews/cs.cs-09-20-0006.html

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