For more than 30 years, Ski Utah has operated it's Learn to Ski and Snowboard program that allows school-aged kids across the state to try skiing or snowboarding. Currently around 3,000 children participate annually; the goal is to grow that number to 30,0000 a year by 2034.
YSA Executive Director Emily Fisher says the idea to expand came after Salt Lake City officials approached her last year about extending afterschool programming to youth along the Wasatch Front.
“And it was great timing,” Fisher said. “Ski Utah was thinking about revamping their fourth grade one-day learn to ski program, and we wanted to expand. And so, we started talking about this partnership and worked on it all last winter in the summer, and now it's coming to fruition this winter.”
The President and CEO of Ski Utah Nathan Rafferty says they were encountering challenges with the current passport model particularly around liability and transportation logistics with school districts.
“And it just felt like it was getting harder and harder when we were trying to make it bigger and bigger,” Rafferty said.
With new support from Ski Utah and the hiring of a Salt Lake programs director, YSA is rolling out a pilot program this winter. Over the next three years, the program will grow from a one-day experience into a four-day on-snowing learning series
“The expanded format strengthens the learning experience, but it also provides a lot of valuable retention data,” Fischer said. “So, Ski Utah has really great data and results from their ‘Discover Winter’ program, which is an adult program, but it shows that participants are far more likely to return to the same resort where they first learned, and it helps build lifelong skiers. So, for kids, if they ski or ride four or five times, then they consider themselves a skier or a rider. And so that's really what we're looking to do.”
Rafferty says the long-term objective is to create lifelong lovers of skiing and snowboarding. Ski Utah will track program success through follow-up emails and surveys to find out whether kids had fun and where they returned to the slopes.
