Support For Bhutan Skates
We have been collaborating with the local skateboarding club Bhutan Skates to promote skateboarding across the country. Together, we co-host free youth skate camps, built a media lab, and work with local schools to incorporate skateboarding into physical education programs.
Since 2022, we have partnered with Bhutan Skates to co-host annual, free, week-long youth skateboarding camps at the Johnny Strange Memorial Skatepark in Thimphu, Bhutan. During these camps, we provide loaner skateboards and safety equipment for an average of 30 participants daily.
Adjacent to the skatepark, the Bhutan Skates office is home to a media lab we helped establish, equipped with laptop computers and digital cameras. Media workshops are integrated into the skate camp curriculum, allowing participants to develop creative and technical skills alongside skateboarding.
In addition, we have visited four local schools across Thimphu to promote the physical and social benefits of skateboarding. These efforts are laying the groundwork for developing school-based skateboarding programs planned for 2026.
All programs held at the Johnny Strange Skatecamp in Thimphu, Bhutan, are supported and carried out in accordance with the wishes of the Strange Family.
A message from the Strange Family:
Johnny Strange was an adventurer, mountaineer, extreme sports athlete, brother, son, and friend from Malibu, California. He was the youngest person to summit the world's Seven Summits (including Mt. Everest) and a renowned skydiver and BASE jumper. He big wave surfed in Nazare, Portugal and Hawaii, trained in martial arts in Thailand, and in his free time could often be found bombing hills in California on his skateboard. Through his many adventures, he worked to bring awareness to causes he cared about, like protecting youth in impoverished or war-torn regions.
Johnny first visited the Kingdom of Bhutan in 2014, and fell in love with the beautiful mountainous country and the people of Bhutan, the happiest people he had ever met. He developed a friendship with many Bhutanese people and spent time working with the Bhutan Olympic Committee. On his two trips to Bhutan, he brought a longboard skateboard and skated the hills in Thimphu, the nation's capital. When his skateboard caught the attention of local kids, he taught them how to skate.
Johnny tragically passed away in a BASE jumping accident in 2015. In his honor, his family, in cooperation with the Kingdom of Bhutan, built the Johnny Strange Skatepark in Thimphu in 2018–the first skatepark in Bhutan. The Strange family is excited to partner with Salad Days of Skateboarding to ensure the long term success of the skatepark by maintaining the park and providing boards, shoes, and skate camps to Bhutanese youth.