Semicolon Skateboards Community Contribution Company Ltd.
Semicolon Skateboards is a Community Contribution Company (C3) based in Golden, British Columbia. Founded by Joe Huxley and Jessie Oatway, our mission is to use skateboarding and skate culture as a vehicle for mental health awareness, addiction recovery, suicide prevention, and youth empowerment through increased access to skateboard programs and support services.
We’re building a brand that gives back to our community, sparks open conversations around mental illness, addiction, and suicide, and encourages those who are struggling to pause, reach out, and continue.
Falling is part of the process — in skating and in life
We design, produce, and sell custom skateboard decks and apparel. Our proceeds support local mental health organizations, with a strong emphasis on transparency and community trust. At least 60% of profits are donated to causes that promote well-being and resilience, with the remaining funds reinvested into sustaining our operations.
The Back Story
Semicolon Skateboards was born from lived experience. As troubled youth navigating mental health struggles, low self-worth, and the pull of substance use, we found ourselves at a crossroads. For us, skateboarding wasn’t just a hobby — it was survival. The power and pain of skating gave us purpose, identity, and a physical outlet to process what we couldn’t put into words. It quite literally saved our lives.
Now, over 30 years later, and over a decade of sobriety skateboarding is still the sharpest tool in our kit — a lifelong outlet for managing mental health, building community, and staying connected to ourselves and others.
Our journey deepened when we discovered the Neurosequential Model developed by Dr. Bruce Perry and witnessed its real-world impact through Joel Pippus’s Push to Heal program at Hull Services. Everything clicked. Skateboarding isn’t just fun or therapeutic by accident — it directly engages the brain in ways that support healing from trauma and promote healthy development.
According to the Neurosequential Model:
- The brainstem craves sensory input — skateboarding provides it through sound, balance, and motion.
- The diencephalon seeks rhythm and repetition — found in every push, pump, and carve.
- The limbic system needs connection — the skate community is rich with belonging, mentorship, and shared passion.
- The neocortex thrives on learning and challenge — skateboarding is an endless journey of skill-building, creativity, and growth.
Needless to say, skateboarding checks all the boxes: it’s sensory-rich, rhythm-based, relationship-driven, and cognitively demanding. In short, it’s healing — and it can change lives.
We named our company Semicolon Skateboards as a tribute to the powerful symbolism of the semicolon. In writing, a semicolon represents a pause — not an end — a choice to continue the sentence. Thanks to Project Semicolon, this symbol has become a beacon of mental health awareness and suicide prevention. It stands for the decision to keep going, even when things feel overwhelming. That message — your story isn’t over — is one we carry proudly in everything we do.
At Semicolon, we believe skateboarding is more than a sport, art form, or subculture — it's a lifestyle, and for many, a lifeline. We are honoured to donate 60% of our profits locally to suicide prevention, youth programming, and trauma-informed community initiatives.
