Greetings
from Sunny Breckenridge, CO - April 2011
I just wanted to take a moment
to share what we have been up to this week here at
the 4th Annual Wounded Warrior Family Ski Week.
First of all, the team out here includes myself,
Bob Hall, Chuck Fernald, Doug Cherry and his
friend, Nicole Blatt.
We arrived last Saturday and
have been very busy ever since. We spent half of
Sunday linking up with the Breckenridge Outdoor
Education Center, which is in its 38th year of
teaching adaptive skiing. Then after some turns on
the mountain, we observed the orientation session
for the 10 Wounded Warriors and their families that
had been selected to participate in this year's
event.
Monday brought 8" of fresh
powder for us, and a great afternoon of skiing with
the vets and their family members. On Tuesday we
skied hard till noon and then met up with the vets
again for the afternoon.
Wednesday morning started with a
staff meeting at the BOEC, family and group photos,
and then a full day of skiing with the
vets.
Thursday the vets had the day to
do other events with their families. They went
shopping, ice skating, tubing, and fly fishing on a
beautiful stretch of restricted access water. We
had the day off and were blessed with about 8" of
fresh powder back in the trees. Late afternoon we
met with Bob Miller, the founder and head organizer
of this event and picked his brain on how to get or
event off and running. He and the steering
committee from out here offered to assist us with
our event next year.
I cannot tell you how rewarding
this week has been for our whole team. Seeing these
heroes working through their physical and mental
injuries and achieve breakthroughs in skiing or
snowboarding has been amazing. Watching the
families interact and see their in this environment
confirms for me the value of making this a family
event.
Take M, her husband B was hit by
a rocket on Camp Ramadi in April of 2005. He lost
his right eye, has traumatic brain injury (TBI),
partial paralysis on his left side, seizure
disorder from the TBI, and has survived numerous
surgeries from the multiple internal injuries
sustained from the shrapnel. She is the rock
holding everything together in this family and told
me how great it was for her to be able to see B and
the kids skiing, meanwhile having a few days where
she could have her own fun and not have to worry
about them. In her words, "B's wounds happened for
a reason - we would never have met so many amazing
people, seen such beautiful places, and done things
like this."
For now I have a quick appeal of
support - Many of the participants at this event
needed skiing and cold weather clothing to come
here. I know many of you have
clothes/boots/hats/gloves that you (or your kids 5
and over) won't wear again or have outgrown. Please
put them into a bag or box and contact us for
collection. Your donations will be greatly
appreciated and you will receive a receipt for tax
purposes.
