Clint Lunde was having a midlife crisis. In 2009, he was approaching 45 years old, didn’t like his job with Microsoft that he had just moved from Reno to Seattle for, and was laid up on the couch after breaking his ankle skiing. So Lunde, an avid skier, began to ponder the age-old question — if I was a billionaire and didn’t have to worry about money, what would I be doing?
The answer, he discovered after some soul-searching, was helping disabled and needy kids learn to ski and snowboard. That year, Lunde founded SkiDUCK, an acronym for Skiing and Snowboarding for Disabled and Underprivileged Children and older Kids. An entirely volunteer-run organization, SkiDUCK works with schools and youth organizations to get kids who would never otherwise experience winter sports on the mountain for free. The nonprofit, which started at Squaw Valley, has since branched out to four other Tahoe ski areas and seven across the country.
‘I realized we all have passions,’ Lunde said. ‘When you combine it with your innate compassion — I call it passion squared — it becomes exponential. People connect with giving; it’s insatiable.’
SkiDUCK achieves its mission in two ways. It raises money and awareness for established adaptive ski programs, like Disabled Sports USA Far West at Alpine Meadows. Last year, SkiDUCK donated $1,000 to Disabled Sports and gave around $1,400 worth of Bogner clothing for the silent auction at its annual Ability Bash.
‘We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel,’ said Dave Westall, SkiDUCK’s director of North Tahoe events and a board member.
Where SkiDUCK is doing things differently is with the other half of its program, directed at underprivileged kids. Unlike other organizations geared toward getting children on the slopes, like SOS Outreach or Project Snow, SkiDUCK does not charge the kids a fee and is focused purely on access; it is not a youth mentoring or character-building program, and is open to all needy kids. SkiDUCK’s motto is ‘kids in need shred for free.’
‘On the surface, it’s a fun day, a new experience,’ Lunde said. ‘But in the grand scheme, it exposes kids to guys like Dave [Westall], to the outdoors, to see a whole new world of opportunity than the city.’
Westall stresses the importance of access, of opening up the sport to children who normally would not be able to afford it. The benefits, he said, are that the kids get to be out in nature enjoying the freedom that skiing provides, far from their day-to-day worries.
‘A lot of these kids have tough lives,’ he said. ‘It’s good for them to be around positive aspects of life rather than doom and gloom.’
SkiDUCK is open to kids ages 6 to 18 who are on a school lunch voucher program. The students come from school districts in Truckee/Tahoe, Stockton, and Washoe County, and youth groups like Boys & Girls Clubs in Nevada and California and Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northern Nevada, as well as Tahoe SAFE Alliance, among others. SkiDUCK acts as an intermediary between the youth programs and ski resorts, helping to provide free lift tickets, rentals, and lessons. SkiDUCK will even give the kids gloves, hats, and jackets if they show up without them (in 2010, Unofficial Squaw donated 10 Trew jackets and 125 Unofficial beanies). Last year, Squaw Valley donated 100 of its rental helmets and around 600 pairs of old skis and boards to SkiDUCK, which passed on the gear to its most active youth groups. Fireside Pizza is even providing lunch at most of SkiDUCK’s events this season.
‘These kids are so stoked to be able to come out and not have to pay anything and ski and board,’ said Westall.
The kids can come out as many times as they want, and SkiDUCK encourages them to participate in the program at least three times.
‘We’ll keep them in the program long enough to get good so they fall in love with the sport,’ Lunde said.
Last year, SkiDUCK held 10 events at Squaw Valley, its home mountain, and served around 300 children. It also had programs at Kirkwood, Tahoe Donner, and Sugar Bowl, as well as ski areas in Minnesota, New Jersey, and New York. This year, SkiDUCK has doubled the number of ski resorts it works with from eight to 16 and plans to hold 50 events in Tahoe. Its goal for 2012 is to provide 2,012 free skier days.
SkiDUCK depends on its cadre of 200 volunteers to make the program function. Every event has a five-to-one ratio of kids to volunteers, with an average of 50 students per event. No one draws a salary, not even Lunde, whose work for SkiDUCK becomes a full-time job in the winter.
For Lunde, his midlife crisis couldn’t have turned out any better.
‘I wake up each morning with the greatest sense of fulfillment and purpose than I ever had before,’ he said.
For more information about SkiDUCK, visit skiduck.org.
~ Comment on this story below.
