Cool - even if it is Snowboarding (J/K)
Program offers free snowboarding to underprivileged kids
09:27 PM PST on Sunday, January 25, 2004
Associated Press
BOLTON, Vt. - Travis Nolan broke his finger while wrestling the day before, but wasn't going to miss his first time on a snowboard.
The stocky 11-year-old had never been to a ski area and was eager to try the new sport.
"I just wanted to do it so I don't really care," he said of his splinted pinky wrapped in gauze. "It just sounds interesting to learn how to snowboard and go on ski lifts."
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A group of happy snowboarders
Nolan, whose father is disabled and mother works two jobs, was chosen to be part of Burton Snowboards' Chill program, a six-week after-school program that provides free snowboarding lessons and equipment to disadvantaged kids around the country. This year 170 Vermonters and 1,500 kids aged 10 to 18 will take part in nine north American cities, including Seattle.
The Seattle program will be held at The Summit at Snoqualmie.
"It's a great opportunity for kids who wouldn't normally have the opportunity to do this," said Gavin Wallace, coordinator of the after-school program at H.O. Wheeler elementary school in Burlington.
He hopes the six trips to Bolton Valley Resort will help the children believe in themselves. He hopes Nolan and the other fifth-graders will carry the confidence they get from snowboarding when they move next year to Edmunds Middle School, a larger school with more affluent kids and social and academic challenges. "It's a hard transition," he said.
Most kids in the Chill program face hard, if not harder, transitions.
They come from poor intercity neighborhoods and a series of foster homes. They have trouble in school, unstable home lives and struggle with addictions.
"We work with a lot kids that are discouraged by a lot of things," said Chill Director Jen Davis. "They don't have people in their lives to model persistence, to model stick-to-it-iveness."
The Chill program gives them a chance to do something fun: snowboarding. "Because of that kids who tend by nature to quit things, they tend to stick with us longer," she said.
For example a Los Angeles teenager identified by Chill only as Talicia had lived in 37 different group homes before arriving at a foster home she loved. Her social worker and foster mother encouraged her to sign up for Chill in Los Angeles last year.
"Snowboarding has helped me understand that if I try really hard I can achieve my goals and I don't have to give up," the teenager said.
"I feel a sense of freedom and peace because I don't have to worry about things down in the city," she said.
In Salt Lake City, a Chill participant identified only as Porfirio joined a gang at 13 and overdosed while huffing chemicals at 15. He was sent to several detention centers through the juvenile court system. Snowboarding was a reward for staying sober for more than eight months.
"This program has shown me that there are cooler things to do with my time than to be involved with gangs and drugs," he said.
He's proud of what he accomplished through snowboarding and compares the sport to challenges in life.
"One little mistake on a board and you fall, just like in life," he said. "You have to learn to move slowly so that you don't suffocate ... so that you can pick yourself up and not be afraid to fail."
Burton started the program in 1995 in Burlington as a way to give back to the community, Davis said. The company soon saw the impact snowboarding had on the kids and knew it wanted to expand. Now the Chill program is offered to students in Boston, New York, Chicago, Salt Lake City, Seattle, Toronto and Washington. Mitsubishi Motors funds 27 percent of the nonprofit's $350,000 budget, Burton provides the gear and SoBe provides drinks.
This month roughly 50 kids from around Burlington, and as far away as Lamoille County, pulled pants and coats off racks and were fitted with boots and boards at the slick Burton headquarters.
They milled around the lobby in their new attire with their boards.
"Do you ride goofy or regular?" Peter Ivins of Milton asked his younger brother, Thomas.
"What's that mean?" Thomas Ivins said.
"There's nothing wrong with it. It's just how you ride," Peter Ivins explained, referring to the position a snowboarder places his or her feet on the board.
Some had tried snowboarding before or have friends who do it.
"It seems really exhilarating," said Peter Ivins.
James Landry, 14, and his friend came all the way from Eden. "I heard about the program and wanted to try it. I want to get a little better."
"I've only sledded," said Joselyn Hall, 10, a fourth-grader at the Champlain Elementary school.
The group boarded a bus that headed out of Burlington, south down the interstate, past farmland and rural towns and up into the mountains toward Bolton, the first ski area some had ever seen even though many live practically in the shadow of some resorts.
In group lessons they walked up a small incline and glided down with two feet on the board. They slid backward and into each other, laughed, and fell.
After 90 minutes of lessons in the single degree air, some formed long arcs across the hill, starting to grasp the technique. Then they warmed up in the lodge. They drank water and juice, wolfed down granola bars and headed back out.
"We had so many back on the hill after their breaks. They started using the tow rope," Davis said.
By the end of the first day, the successes had started to show. Nolan loved it.
"If they come with six times they're going to succeed some way, whether it's making a new friend on the bus, or riding the char lift, or coming down the mountain," she said. "We don't define success. We just want them to come out and feel good about themselves."
