Christian Hosoi, more pro skateboarders coming to Fresno for a cause. Here’s when and where

Start talking skateboarding demos in Fresno and Rodney Rodriguez gets kind of nostalgic for the days of the Ark, a famous vertical skate ramp that was set up in a back yard in Clovis.

This was the 1980s and some of the biggest names in skateboarding tended to show up to show off.

“They were free if you can get out there,” Rodriguez says of the gatherings, and for a kid growing up in Calwa, they were an informative, if not transformative experience.

“It helped seal that stamp of ‘I’m a skateboarder forever.’”

Rodriguez is making the point, because, at 51, he still skateboards, but also advocates for the sport through his nonprofit Fresno Skateboard Salvage, which is gearing up for a massive event at Lion’s Park on Saturday.

The event, sponsored by Bones Love Milk and Producer’s Dairy, is a skate demo and competition featuring professional riders like Christian Hosoi (a flat-out skate legend), Bryce Wettsetin (who skated in the Tokyo Olympics) and Christopher Hiett (an up-and-coming rock star of a skateboarder), among others.

Rodriguez is particularly interested in Hosoi, whom he’s seen skate before but has never met.

“Christian Hosoi was a hero to me as a kid.”

Clovis’ Prodigy Skateboard Shop will facilitate the competition and several food trucks and pop-ups (Dad’s Cookies, for one) will be on site 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Fresno isn’t a place like Carlsbad, where it’s common for pros to just show up to skate, Rodriguez says.

“That doesn’t necessarily happen where we are.”

But when it does — when young skaters get the chance to see and interact with professionals outside of the magazine and social media — “it elevates everyone’s ability to skate.”

For Fresno Skate Salvage, the event will make a major contribution to its mission.

Bones Love Milk is donating $10,000 to the nonprofit.

Part of that money, Rodriguez says, will go into a fund to help build a skate park in Calwa. The rest will go directly to getting new skateboards to under-resourced kids, Rodriguez says. Since 2016, Fresno Skateboard Salvage has given out more than 2,400 boards.

“It gives us the freedom to help a lot more kids skate.”

He was one of those kids, growing up in poverty in a situation where “traditional sports seemed a little out of reach.”

Skateboarding was different.

“Once you had one,” he says, “you had everything you needed.”