Sweat drips from her face as she sands down a new piece of work in the busy shop. The smell of wood fills her nostrils as she shaves the soon-to-be masterpiece; ideas fly through her mind of what it could be.

After hours of work, her pintail longboard will be done and ready to use. This process continually fuels her passion for making boards.

When junior Mary Rembisz heard about the Gone Boarding program, she was ready to get involved. Originally, she started off in woodshop, where she was the only girl in the class. That’s when woodshop and Gone Boarding instructor Ryan deCardenas encouraged Rembisz to start recruiting. She started talking to her friends and convinced, three other girls to join.

“There is really no difference between being a guy or girl in the class; girls can do it just as well, so who cares. You just do what you got to do,” Rembisz said. “You’re in there to make boards and have fun— there is no difference if you’re a girl or a boy.”
Rembisz soon found a community in the Gone Boarding program; her classmates became her friends. And while some projects take longer than others and are more challenging, with the support of her team, she never lost motivation.

“Sometimes it’s going to drag on and there are going to be times where you want to just throw your project away and say, ‘I don’t even want to look at it,’ but you’re going to keep going at it, because it’s worth it in the end,” Rembisz said.
Before she began crafting boards she didn’t know anything about it, she just dove right in. Rembisz wanted a challenge and she found that in Gone Boarding.

“It is definitely more interesting if you have passion for the things that you are making”, Rembisz said. “So if you are a person who loves to skateboard, or longboard, or go out and surf. It definitely becomes more interesting, because you’re excited to take what you just made, bring it out and use it.”