Pushing For Pink : Interview with Mat Mathews & Gary Rogers

Picture a huge mob of skateboarders taking over the streets… all wearing pink. People stop in their tracks and ask ‘What is this all about?’. With the 2nd Annual Pushing For Pink on the books for Sunday Nov 6th, we decided to sit down with founders Mat Mathews and Gary Rogers to find out more about how the event came about and what drove them to use skateboarding to help raise awareness for Breast Cancer Prevention.

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All right, can tell us a little bit about who you guys are and the idea behind Pushing For Pink? Most people already know Gary, but maybe not you Mat.

Mat Mathews: I’m a skateboarder and graphic designer from the San Fernando Valley. I moved to Bay Area about a year and a half ago to complete my AA degree. Currently, I’m attending SFAI to earn my BFA degree. My Friend’s mom who was fighting breast cancer would attend the breast cancer walks annually with her fundraising team called “Rachel’s Roadies”. Unfortunately for me I wasn’t able to afford the entrance fee for the walk that Rachel was apart of. I wanted to show my friend some support but the walks were too expensive and the demographic was a lot different from what people my age were into. It was also hard to get people my age involved in breast cancer prevention events, so I came up with Pushing For Pink as a way to show my support. I originally designed the logo for a school project; it was a symbol for those who are fighting breast cancer to keep pushing forward. When my friend’s mom passed away, I had just moved to the Bay Area, and met Gary, I didn’t even know him that well, and I told him about my idea. He was like “I dunno, yeah, maybe.” Not to long after I first asked him, his aunt who was fighting cancer passed away, and then he called me back and was like “Yeah let’s do it!” and we started working on the first event.

So you guys had just met when you started planning the first event?

Gary Rogers : We kicked it maybe once or twice before that. I had kind of put the idea on a back-burner and then life hit me like “Yo! These are important, you need to take action” Because, like Matt said, you never find the importance of something until it starts to effect you. I was coming up and doing stuff more for myself and not really doing things for people. Then my aunt passed away from breast cancer. I had lost my grandmother to cancer, and a few other family members, so it just like the calling of the universe telling me “Start giving back!”.

Involving skateboarders in something as important as this I got the idea to have products there. We’ll try to make a donation, get your favorite stuff, but realize that when you gave money it went to a cause. I was able to provide that, he was able to design a logo, design an idea, which he does for me all the time now because my brain hurts.

Mat : The idea for the skate to Ocean Beach, I just wanted it to be a spectacle, so I wanted people to see a large group of kids fairly young, wearing pink, which is kind of odd, so they’re gonna ask “What’s going on, what are you doing?” Then we’ll let them know and hopefully they’ll participate as well.

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The mob from last years amazing event. Photo by Sean Carabarin.

Skateboarders seem to be able to come together for almost any cause and do it really well.

Gary : That’s so tight that skateboarding knows how to come together, and kids get it!

Mat : All skateboarders are basically the same person, with the same interest. One thing that skaters do extremely well is come together.

Gary : Yeah they do, the same shit. They want to be a part of it. Raising as much money as it did was like “Wow! We have something in our hands!” Once a year, top skate companies donate, kids get to go home with the experience. Not to put myself on a pedestal, but a lot of kids were like “Ah I skated with Gary that day!” I get to have that moment where kids are like “Thanks for talking to me! Hanging out with me!” And I’m like “Thanks for being a part of this good ass cause. Thank you.” It’s probably the best thing in the world.

Matt : The reason we chose Keep A Breast was because of Tommy Guerrero. Tommy came in while we were talking to Jim about what organization we were going to donate the proceeds too, and said “Oh, I know someone at Keep A Breast.” Keep A Breast is pretty familiar with culture today, you see young people wearing their “I Heart Boobies” clothes and accessories pretty often, so we thought KAB would be a great organization to be apart of. We hit up Shaney and she was down. Shaney’s awesome; she was willing to help us out with anything that we needed.

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Mat and Gary with Keep A Breast community outreach director Melanie Pierce and founder Shaney Jo Darden. Photo by Eric Torres.

You guys are answering my questions before I could ask them… How much did the last event raise?

Mat : We raised $2,000 dollars, and then a friend of mine met someone that worked at Levi’s named Carole. I invited her to the event, and her sister happened to have breast cancer so she was really moved, and excited that a skateboarder was doing something to promote breast cancer awareness, or to help promote breast cancer prevention. So Levi’s doubled it.

Damn! Without even being a sponsor for the event?

Mat : Yeah, without even being a sponsor, I couldn’t believe they did that. I was so excited. It was all thanks to Carole.

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It’s great when companies like that are willing to put money into causes like Pushing For Pink. It’s not just gimme gimme gimme!

Mat : And they’re based here in San Francisco to, so it being a San Francisco thing kind of helped it out.

Gary : Yeah, killed it for em. That was tight.

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Gary Rogers with the LTD Spitfire Pushing For Pink 80HD Chargers available at the event Nov 6th. Photo by Christian Alexander.

Last year was sick, all the kids ripped and had a good time. Super positive scene for everyone. Do you guys have anything special in store this year? What’s going to be different?

Mat : We’re putting on a ‘Pushing For Pick Participant Photo Exhibition’ at BAIT on 3162 16th Street at 8:30pm the same night as the event.

Gary : Everyone that comes out to the event that day will be involved in the art show the same night. It could be a turn-up, could be a turn-down, you never know.

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Did you guys learned anything from the last event? Did anything crazy happen that you weren’t anticipating?

Mat : People do exactly what you tell them not to do. We said no skating in the street, and they jump right out there!

Gary : Skateboarders are still skateboarders, we found that out, but another thing we also found out too is that they were willing to listen. They did listen to us, they were in the street or whatever, but when we got to the beach, it was getting rowdy, they would come together, and … I remember they were picking up the water bottles too, we didn’t leave the beach all fucked up, it was awesome.

Matt : People were DMing me after the event, telling me about their mom or their aunt, or their sister that was fighting breast cancer, and how appreciative they were of the event and being a part of it. That means a lot to me because that was the point, I want people to know that they’re not alone in this. I have three friends whose moms have breast cancer. I believe that’s way too many.

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Photo by Eric Torres

That’s really cool that people reached out to you afterward. Well, you guys kind of covered all my questions without me asking.

Mat : One more thing, we want to move this around. I want to go to LA, I want to go to New York, I want to go to Washington, I want to go to Oregon. Then I’m going to go to Vermont, were gonna go to Texas, byaaaaah! I want to do this everywhere.

Gary : Yeah, worldwide! I just want to stay in Waller Street…

Mat : Breast cancer isn’t only in SF.

Gary : I know, it’s everywhere! Hey! Actually this year, if you read this interview, DM us where you want this to happen, and we’ll try to get that done, that’s what we’ll do for Pushing For Pink.

Mat : That’s a good idea.

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Mat Mathews with the LTD Spitfire Pushing For Pink 80HD Chargers available at the event Nov 6th. Photo by Christian Alexander.

Anyone you want to thank for helping make this happen?

Gary : Ah shit nigga shout out! All these niggas…

Mat : I’m shouting out my friend Xavier, because without his mom being the amazing and loving person that she was, I would not have come up with this idea, her name is Rachel Brooks, she is resting in peace.

Gary : Ah yeah. Shout out to, basically, anyone that has a parent with breast cancer or anyone that knows anybody going through it, we’re doing this for you, not for us, we have no selfish intention. It’s 100% donation, nothing comes back to us. You’re important to us, we’ve started this to start a family with those people that are dealing with those struggles, we’ve started Pushing For Pink Organization to help people with that. Shout out to everybody that helps us, like Deluxe, Jim, Christian, everybody, Thrasher, Metro …

Mat : Keep A Breast.

Gary : Keep A Breast 110%, thank you Shaney for starting what you started and for all you do to make it happen. Carol Young from Levi’s, ah man, dude let me see the list.

There’s a list?

Matt : I should name everybody. Can we name everybody? Lets start with Jim T. ,Spitfire Wheels and the entire DLX crew. Volcom and Remy Stratton.

Gary : Mah nigga Remy.

Mat : Emerica …

Gary : Mah nigga Tony DeSilva.

Mat : Thrasher and Tony Vitello.

Gary : Thank you Tony Vitello. Thank you Jake Phelps, you had nothing to do with this, just thank you, you’re in my head for some reason right now.

Mat : Thanks Jake. Thanks Ando from FTC.

Gary : Thank you Ando.

Mat : Stance and Erica Yary, thank you Erica!

Gary : And thank you to the people that came out last year, thank you to people that will come out this year. There’s more people that we didn’t thank, and if we did forget about you, we’re not dicks, just remind us that we’re terrible and forgot you, and we’ll thank you later. I can’t wait to do this for years to come and I’m glad this is not a fling.

Interview by Christian Alexander