{"id":16143,"date":"2016-12-21T17:38:23","date_gmt":"2016-12-21T22:38:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=16143"},"modified":"2016-12-21T17:38:23","modified_gmt":"2016-12-21T22:38:23","slug":"skaters-first-teams-with-santa-for-charity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/skaters-first-teams-with-santa-for-charity\/","title":{"rendered":"Skaters First teams with Santa for charity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Jake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Santa Claus took time out of his busy schedule this holiday season to strap on his skates and hit the ice at the Stronach Aurora Recreation Complex.<\/p>\n<p>Dozens of skaters joined Santa on Saturday for a Santa Skate and Food Drive, the first run by Skaters First in Aurora of what is to be an annual event.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were looking for a fun way to get both kids and parents on the ice, and contribute in some way as well,\u201d said Lindsay Smith Chapman, one of two directors of Skaters First.<\/p>\n<p>Smith Chapman and Deborah Botticella took over the business in July from Lynn Hayzelden, with over fifty years combined experience teaching learn-to-skate programs at all age levels.<\/p>\n<p>Together they employ a cast of professional teachers for a variety of different programs, from learn-to-skate for ages three and up, to intro to figure skating, to power skating.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have a great ratio of skaters to instructors, at five to one,\u201d said Chapman. <\/p>\n<p>The food drive brought in enough goods to overflow the table laid out for them, and all were donated to the Aurora Food Pantry.<br \/>\nMore information about the program can be found at www.skatersfirst.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Santa Claus took time out of his busy schedule this holiday season to strap on his skates and hit the ice at the Stronach Aurora Recreation Complex.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":16117,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/2016-12-22-11.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}