If you live in New York, you’re likely familiar with the sidewalk sales that have been going on all summer at McGolrick park in support of Black Lives Matter. They’ve been an amazing opportunity for people to come together for a good cause during the various phases of reopening. Skateboard Story connected with event organizer, Aaron Wiggs, for an interview that lays out how the event, which has raise $140K thus far, came together.
When did you do the first sidewalk sale and what led you to doing it?
Our first sidewalk sale launched early June. This was around the time when protest across the nation were starting to spark off, looting was still a thing and we just sat there looking at each other thinking “what can we do to make somewhat of a difference”? I suggested to two of my friends that day (Perry Goodman & Sachiko Clyde) that we should just go through our closets, put some clothes together and have a sidewalk sale. I work at Supreme, Perry works for Palace and Sachiko has an amazing women’s vintage collection, so we just gathered what we didn’t need and put it together for a good cause.
The idea was birthed on a bench in the same park that we do the sidewalk sales at biweekly. Sitting there with Perry and Sachiko we were just disgusted with where the world was at. At this time so many people were starting to donate to various non profits and gofundme’s, so we wanted to contribute in some kind of way. Speaking about this and getting sparked on the idea was one thing, but days later Sachiko sent me a text saying “hey babe, so are we doing this on Sunday?” When I read that text I just thought to myself “okay, this shit is on. Let’s do this, let’s make a commercial and whatever we have to do to promote this and bring people out from our neighborhood to support.”
Read the full story here. And if you haven’t seen the amazing Uncle Leroy commercials posted on Aaron’s Instagram to promote the event, we’ve embedded them below.
