Spreading The Gift of Self Confidence Through Skating

Tiffany Keene beamed with pride as her daughter, Phoebe, 5, performed in a trio of figure skaters helping show parents filling the stands exactly what their preschool children have been up to the past 32 weeks. 

Her daughter was partaking in an End of Year Celebration for a 32-week Learn to Skate program run as a partnership between the Refugee Women’s Alliance (ReWA) and One Roof Foundation, the Kraken’s non-profit arm. This was the fifth cohort of classes to graduate from the program, which sees about 80 preschoolers ages 5-and-under bussed weekly to the Kraken Community Iceplex from multiple locations around the city for the free lessons. 

And with five years of the program now complete, some parents, like Keene are starting to see multiple children graduate from their lessons.  

“My son Rufus was with a previous cohort two years ago,” Keene said. “He loves hockey. I remember a few years ago, we saw a demonstration being set up for ball hockey and he tried it and turned to me and said that he really wanted to learn how to skate and play hockey.” 

Enter ReWA, which provides free and low-cost, bilingual and bicultural childcare and preschool for children up to age 5 from low income, refugee and immigrant families, with learning centers on Martin Luther King Blvd. as well as in Lake City, Northgate, Beacon Hill and a new Othello location opened last month. Beacon Hill resident Keene, whose family moved here 25 years ago from her native China, found that ReWA offered the Learn to Skate program and immediately enrolled her son. 

“So, he learned how to skate and then he did hockey lessons as well,” Keene said. “And when Phoebe was 2, she was actually in the audience watching him perform. And then she said she wants to learn how to skate just like her brother.” 

Phoebe first took part in last year’s fourth cohort of classes at age 4, then returned this year.  

“She likes the figure skating because she’s one of the better skaters,” Keene said.  

She was so good she got to participate in a hockey demonstration during the End of Year Celebration, held in front of about 300 family and friends, as well as the added special figure skating performance for only the trio of skaters.

Program participants can choose to take hockey lessons once they get the skating part relatively mastered. Usually, it’s the better skaters that opt for hockey since it can be difficult for newcomers to transition from the longer figure skate blades to the shorter hockey versions. 

Keene said no one from her immigrant family had ever played hockey before.  

“It’s not something you would know growing up there,” she said. “I didn’t even know you could do hockey or figure skating when I was there. I didn’t really know what hockey was until ReWA introduced us to it.” 

ORF helps supply transportation to the Community Iceplex from the various ReWA learning center locations for the preschool program participants. Skating and hockey instructors are also supplied by ORF and the Kraken. 

Having two children go through the program made Keene want to volunteer as a chaperone for the classes the past two years, meaning she accompanies participants on their bus rides and stays with them at the arena. She’s seen firsthand how both the on-ice and off-ice activities can bolster confidence in children whose families often don’t speak English at home, which can make social integration more challenging. 

“From Phoebe’s class, it’s a really diverse classroom,” Keene said. “We have families from China, Mexico, Ecuador, Ethiopia. Korea and Japan as well. And having the ability to take the bus over to the Kraken and learn how to skate and just have fun, that’s pretty special. 

“They get to do this with their classmates and can encourage one another. So, just cheering on and having fun, having a good time is very important. I like that there’s not a true structure here. I see how the coaches encourage them and get them to have fun and explore what they can do on the ice.” 

And that confidence gained, she added, has stayed with her children. 

“It’s learning how to skate and knowing they can do it,” she said. “When they were watching the Winter Olympics, it really inspired them to know that they are capable and able.”