VAIL — The 14th season of the Colorado-bred Snowsports Outreach Society launched with unprecedented fanfare on Saturday as U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar rode the gondola to the top of Vail Mountain to publicly recognize the recently renamed SOS Outreach charity.
“It’s a wonderful program,” said Salazar, who flew from Washington, D.C., and then braved a four-hour commute on the snow-covered interstate to thank the Eagle County charity group before returning to the Senate floor Monday. “To all the people participating in this program, I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for giving young people a chance to live up to the full potential of their humanity.”
Salazar joined the opening ceremony for this winter’s SOS Outreach program alongside SOS founder and Eagle County Commissioner Arn Menconi and several ski industry dignitaries, who took the opportunity to recognize dedicated supporter Bill Jensen, president of Vail Resorts’ Mountain Division, as the charity’s humanitarian of the year. At the same ceremony, the Vail Valley Foundation presented SOS Outreach with a $60,000 grant.
“Today what’s happening through the great leadership at SOS is that young people are being exposed to skiing and snowboarding at a young age, and that’s very, very important,” said Salazar, a three-times-a-year skier first introduced to the sport at age 25. “Because when you become confident in yourself, when you become confident in being a snowboarder or a skier, those values that are being taught to you by SOS are going to stay with you all the rest of your life. That means when you are 40 or 50 or 70, all of you kids that are participating in the SOS program are going to be tremendously successful.”
More than 100 children, including 25 students from Denver’s Kepner Middle School participating in the Vail Resorts Diversity program, took part in the SOS Outreach launch on the mountain, in what is expected to be a record season for the number of youths served by the sports-based development program designed to build character and self-esteem in underprivileged 8- to 18-year-olds through skiing and snowboarding.
Formerly known as the Snowboard Outreach Society, SOS Outreach is expanding into skiing for the first time this season and hopes to serve up to 3,000 youths at 30 mountain resorts in eight states this winter. More than 600 volunteers support the program nationwide.
“This season we will experience 100 percent growth and we’re very honored that Senator Salazar believes in our cause,” Menconi said. “We hope this brings attention to the power that the wintersports industry plays in making a positive impact on kids’ lives.”
For more information or to get involved in SOS Outreach, call 970-926-9292 or visit .
