Anonymous Donation Helps Out Paralympic Ski Program
ASPEN, Colo. (CBS4) – An anonymous donation has helped a Colorado based Paralympic ski club back on its feet.
The adaptive program at the Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboard Club is one of the most successful club programs in the county. It consistently puts athletes on the national team.
"This is my third season here in Aspen and I'm working to make the Paralympic team and make the national team," said skier Chis Slavin.
Slavin has been training for three years now and has set on making it to Sochi, Russia for the 2014 Winter Paralympics.
"It's incredibly competitive this year," said Slavin. "I'm not a lock for Sochi, I'm still working my way there. I'm getting better and hopefully I'll make it."
The AVSC is still waiting for $300,000 in grant money from the federal government.
"We did an aggressive funding campaign for December, we made it through December and then just in the last two weeks we had the fortunate news," said AVSC Director of Excellence Walt Evans.
An anonymous donor gave the AVSC $180,000.
"That's really a solution for us, it's not an end-all by any means, but it will get us over the hump and fund the whole program," said Evans.
"I was actually talking about it on the ski lift today about how thankful I was that we're getting things in order because it makes it so that we can concentrate on skiing and not if we're going to be able to continue training," said Slavin.
"We're still chasing about $25,000 to produce the way we want to. But we have training and competition covered for those athletes," said Evans.
The anonymous donation guarantees the AVSC will be able to host the national championships for adaptive programs at Buttermilk Mountain in February.
