Black athletes thrive at D.C.'s first U.S. Figure Skating club

In her first ice skating class, Sheldonna Harris’s six-year-old daughter mastered every skill. But there was one thing she refused to do, and that was fall. 

Harris laughed as she reminisced about her now 18-year-old’s beginnings at Fort Dupont Ice Arena: “She just wouldn’t get it, that you have to fall down, it’s one of the skills you have to demonstrate,” Harris said. “She’s like: ‘I don’t fall.’ 

Harris knew nothing about ice skating when she enrolled Jaiden in classes, but Harris was soon spending hours at the rink. On weekends, she volunteered at the sign-in table, where she connected with fellow skating mom, Tomeka Gueory. Ice skating was a way to expand her daughter’s horizons, says Gueory, right in their own neighborhood.

“When I found out about Fort Dupont Ice Arena, I spread the word,” Gueory said. She didn't know it existed until she moved across the street, and she says she wasn't alone. While coaches were coming from all over the city to teach, many people in Southeast didn’t know about it. “What was important was making sure the residents in Ward 7 knew,” she said.

Little did the two know they’d soon start D.C.’s first-ever U.S. Figure Skating club, which today has alumni in Disney on Ice and at Howard’s skating club, the first at a historically Black university. Most importantly to Harris and Gueory, its existence means that local Black skaters, along with anyone interested in joining, can advance their skills in an inclusive, affordable, and Black-led environment.

Harris says the responsibility can get overwhelming, but that accepting it is important “not just to benefit my own children, but every skater in the community, to let them know that no matter your race or your ethnicity, you have a place to skate.”

Creating a home for skaters of color

Harris and Gueory’s journey began when their children started to age out of the arena’s Kids on Ice programming, which at the time was its primary offering. But they weren’t ready to stop skating, and didn’t want to have to head to the suburbs to train. 

While offerings at Fort Dupont were subsidized through its nonprofit arm, classes and specialized programs like team-based synchronized skating were becoming so popular that funding struggled to keep up. The rink's executive director, Ty Newbury, proffered a potential solution for both problems: if parents could start, and then run, an official U.S. Figure Skating club, opportunities for both fundraising and increased programming would open up. 

In the spring of 2018, Harris and Gueory, along with another parent named Eric Karlins, took up the challenge, quickly learning the official rules, writing articles of incorporation, and electing a board (Harris is president and Gueory is secretary). After beginning programming in 2019, District Impact Skating Club became an official member club in 2020, allowing Fort Dupont skaters to advance their practice, compete, and “continue their love of skating,” said Gueory – all without having to leave D.C. The club’s location in the city, and particularly in Ward 7, has helped open the sport up to new participants.

“People are always surprised when I say I’m a skater,” said Gabrielle Francis, a Fort Dupont alum now skating at Howard where she’s studying biology. “I’m Black, I’m plus-sized, I’m tall. When people imagine a skater, they imagine some Russian girl. But this sport can be for Black and brown skaters, too. I love being a model that skating can be for everyone.”

Both the arena and the club are committed to making skating accessible, inclusive, and equitable – no student is turned away for lack of funds. It offers scholarships and reduces costs for everyone through discounted group lessons funded by grants from places like U.S. Figure Skating, the Capital Skating Fund of Washington Figure Skating Club, and the Awesome Foundation. 

“It’s important to reduce the cost barriers associated with figure skating, because it is considered an elite sport,” Harris said, adding that in other places families can pay thousands of dollars a week to participate.

The club has been able to expand synchronized skating and offer freestyle and artistry sessions that help prepare students for competition. There are also off-ice classes like ballet and yoga.

Julianna Lightfoot, who now skates with Disney on Ice, started at Fort Dupont when she was five. It’s where she developed her passion for performing. But she aged out of the kids programming before the club started and the still-limited advanced training was one of the factors that triggered her move to Capital Clubhouse, a rink in Waldorf, Maryland.

“After I moved, I didn’t see a lot of skaters that looked like me. It made me realize how lucky I was,” said Lightfoot, who is Black. If the club had existed earlier, she says she likely would have stayed. “The community was just so great and uplifting and exciting …. It helped me fall in love with skating.” 

Despite their early successes, the club has faced significant headwinds. In spring of 2020, they had to move training outdoors to RFK Field and Anacostia Park, instituting a period that Harris said required “persevering and keeping momentum going.” 

Fort Dupont stayed closed until 2021, forcing them to pursue other rinks, including Bowie Ice Arena. There they got opportunities to connect with prominent Black coaches like Joel Savary from Diversify Ice and Disney on Ice coach Alexander Allen. But it also put a strain on skaters who had only been able to participate because of Fort Dupont’s proximity and affordability. 

“I couldn’t skate as much as I did before because these new rinks weren’t going to be my home, so they weren’t going to let me skate for free or pay discounted freestyles,” said Francis. Paired with her family’s responsibilities caring for her grandparents, the cost of gas, ice time, and coaches meant other rinks weren’t an option. She says that some Fort Dupont skaters had to quit the sport entirely for similar reasons. 

When Fort Dupont finally reopened, the club made up for lost time by hosting testing sessions where skaters could qualify for competitions and social events where the skaters could bond at their home rink. Their efforts paid off when the club’s synchronized skating team was able to participate in Eastern Sectionals, a major East Coast competition, for the first time. The night before, however, one skater dislocated her knee. While they didn’t medal, Harris says they still rose to the occasion.

“That’s the thing you learn about skating: we learn, we fall down, we make adjustments and we try again,” Harris said. 

Yet another adjustment came in 2022, when Fort Dupont began long-needed renovations, pushing the club to once again train at other locations until summer 2025. The change hasn’t been easy. Today, the cost of programming at other DMV-area rinks is three times what it cost at Fort Dupont in 2021. They also often have to practice in evenings, rather than their preferred weekend daytime hours. 

“It’s different contracts, different rates, different time slots,” Harris said. “It’s both the blessing and the curse of still managing to provide skate time.”

District Impact's tight-knit community has sustained in spite of the disruptions. Many alumni still skate, volunteer, or coach, like Gueory’s daughter Tenaj, who now coaches and acts as DISC’s media chair when she’s not at her day job as a 911 dispatcher. 

When Disney on Ice came to D.C., Harris’ family got tickets to watch Lightfoot perform. Lightfoot says that when touring ends, she wants to give back by coaching at Fort Dupont. “It was great to be in my hometown and have people from Fort Dupont contact me,” Lightfoot said. “For kids in the program now, I love showing them what you can do with your skating and how the program has brought up so many great skaters.”

Francis returns when she can; during her freshman year, her best friend’s mom would pick her up and drive her back to the rink. In January, she returned when Fort Dupont hosted a memorial skate to remember for victims of American Airlines Flight 5342, many of whom were members of the ice skating community, some with connections to Fort Dupont. Harris has ensured space for the students to grieve, saying they're a “community for life,” in both joy and sorrow.

As they look ahead to the future, Gueory and Harris say their work at the club, which they jokingly refer to as their youngest child, is far from over. When Fort Dupont finally reopens this summer, they hope to root existing programming back at the rink while also heightening the club's ambition.

Gueory says she loves that Fort Dupont brings skaters from all across the city, and that families in southeast don’t have to cross the bridge to access it.

“We do this for all children in the community, especially Black and brown kids, so they know they have a place,” she said.