LINNAEA WELD - [X]PRESS 2.0 Young skater David Sumisaki, 14, jumps off a ledge while attempting a skate trick at Berkeley Skate Park.

Now an art teacher at Oakland High School, K-Dub, as he is known, has brought skateboarding to the inner-city, with the creation of Town Park in West Oakland.

"I saw how the kids needed a platform to express themselves, and it wasn't just with the skateboarding," K-Dub said. "It was with the art and also the music, the dance and all that."

K-Dub started Town Park, located at DeFremery Park, in 2005 with donations from Bay Area skate shops and parks, including the now-defunct Clean Skate shop and the YMCA Skatepark in Pleasant Hill. He also used $20,000 from his own pocket. K-Dub said the park is still a work in progress. More construction is planned for July.

The park serves youth in Oakland Parks and Recreation classes and is open to the general public. While other Bay Area skate parks are concrete, Town Park's ramps are wood -- at least for now.

The skill level of skaters varies from those who just learned to ollie to more experienced skaters. Daniel Worley, an instructor, said since Town Park opened he has witnessed young skaters improve.

"That's what having a skate park [or skate] area does though, it forces progression," Worley said. "It'll turn that area, you know, into a Mecca of skateboarding."

At one recent class, skater Christopher Krebs, 12, went down the park's biggest ramp for the first time.

"My friends just told me just to ride down it, and just don't pay attention [to] how big it was, and I made it down," Krebs said.

K-Dub, 46, was inspired to skate during middle school when he saw another black student at his school skateboarding. He stopped for a while and went back to basketball. Then, about six years ago, one of his students walked into his classroom, skateboard in hand.

K-Dub asked him: "Well what do you know about that?"

His student responded: "Well what do you know about this?"

After that, K-Dub noticed other students were interested and he started taking them to local skate parks.

Around that time, he met Karl Watson, a professional skateboarder born in Oakland, at an X Games event in Los Angeles. K-Dub wanted to bring the energy from the X Games to Oakland and asked Watson for help.

"I saw the diversity in the crowd, but I didn't see it in the skaters," K-Dub said of the X Games.

The duo collaborated and in 2005 and established Hood Games, bringing skaters together within inner cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco and Oakland.

"It became a celebration of ourselves," K-Dub said.

On June 18, they held an event in downtown Oakland, "Uptown Throwdown."

K-Dub said that making a statement in the community is Town Park's ultimate goal.

"If we can make that happen, then I think that we have done what we set up to do."