A day to make me smile at Disabled Sports

You can get as deep as you want to about volunteering and our Action Rewards program. You can say it’s about doing good, making people feel better, making the environment better or whatever, but that doesn’t really get at the simplicity of why we all do it. Truth is, it just feels good. When I walk away from a day of volunteering, I’m smiling, and that’s all the reward I need.

Take Sunday for example: I got to take part in two bi-ski lessons with Disabled Sports USA Far West up at Alpine Meadows. In the morning, I worked with John, a pharmacist from Reno as a Lesson Assistant to help a 6 year old girl with Cerebral Palsy and numerous other disabilities she has had since birth, enjoy a day on the mountain, (I’ve changed the names to protect any sensitive information).

At first, when we were getting ready inside, Caitlin was fidgety and a little grumpy at us as we fitted the bi-ski to her and strapped a helmet and goggles to her head. As soon as we got on the chair lift though she started smiling and before long she couldn’t stop laughing. John did an amazing job of keeping her entertained on the lifts too, which made a huge difference. I have to admit, just watching him interact with her was a great learning experience for me as I hope to be an instructor rather than an assistant next year.

Thank you Squaw Valley for your generous sponsorship of our Action Rewards program. To learn more about how you can get involved, click here: volunteer.

The whole way up he was rocking her back and forth saying, “Left. Right. Right, left.” He explained to me later that it wasn’t only about keeping her happy on the chair lift as the snow and wind pelted us, it was also part of the lesson. “Right now she doesn’t really respond to the calls, but maybe sometime soon she’ll start looking and leaning right and left as I make the calls and she’ll be able to be more in control of her own skiing.” In the case of DSUSAFW, teaching independence and self confidence through skiing is what empowers their students to do the same in the rest of their lives.

He soon added, “What’s most important now though is that we make sure she has fun.” Caitlin’s laughter was contagious too and before we knew it, all of us were laughing our way up and down the mountain. That by itself would have sent me home happy, but I had an afternoon session too.

In the afternoon we had another bi-ski lesson, this time with Jenny, an adult woman who was paralyzed from the waist down from an accident years ago. Her oldest daughter and husband joined us while her 6 year old daughter took a lesson of her own, (she joined us a little later to show off her skiing too).

The storms that are bringing some 10 feet of snow to the Sierra Nevada this week started rolling in during the afternoon and the holiday crowd cleared out. Visibility wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t good either. I figured they’d all be ready to call it a day pretty quick but they were all stoked to be out there, storm or no storm, and we ended up skiing right up until the lifts closed at 4pm.

Dave, the instructor was giving her pointers the whole time and as the day wore on he progressively backed off and just basically said have at it. He told me later that over the course of her last few lessons Jenny has gotten much more confident and less timid about exploring the mountain. We ended up spending most of our time skiing off of the Roundhouse chair, which Jenny had never been up before and she was excited, and maybe a little nervous, to see a whole new aspect of the mountain.

My job was pretty easy, other than helping lift the bi-ski onto the chair lift and making sure some idiot didn’t come flying down and crash into Jenny or Dave, I pretty much just got to enjoy the fresh snow. With no lines, great powder, a happy student and at the end an energetic 6 year old leading the way, we had a pretty amazing day. I haven’t smiled like that for a long time and it made me smile even more knowing that Caitlin and Jenny probably hadn’t either.