When Kai Eli heard about an 11-year-old boy who was afraid to ride his skateboard at Polson Park he knew he had to take action.

A skateboarder himself, Eli wanted to form a group that would make the park safe for everyone. Playing on the popularity of super heroes, he named the group the Polson Avengers.

They have been around for almost a month and Eli has big plans for the future.

He wants to expand the membership to the point where he can have people looking for needles in the park as well as providing a presence at the skateboard park.

Eli's original idea was to create a big buddy program where Avengers would hang out at the Polson Park skateboard area to help people feel safer.

He admits there was some apprehension from the public about his plan, so he turned his focus to keeping the park needle free.

But the big buddy idea is far from cancelled.

Eli wants to get custom T-shirts made up so everyone will know who they are and that they are there to provide a sense of security for park users of all ages.

“I'll have a crew in here and they will be picking up needles and stuff and then we will have other guys who are actively in the skate park,” he said, while searching for needles earlier this week.

And they were not too hard to find. A used syringe was found near a gazebo after only a few minutes of looking.

Eli stressed his group is not a vigilante organization as some have implied, but just a group of people who want to make the park better for every one.

“I grew up here and spent a lot of time down here,” said Eli.