SOOOO, you may have figured out that I like to ski a bit in the winter. My first post even talks about how I used to be dedicated to skiing all year long (work and my recent injury took care of that streak last year…). I also have worked for Rossignol skis coming up on 12 years here, and while I am mainly into Nordic skiing, I am an adrenaline junky, and going fast is what it is all about. So I skied on Alpine race boards while telemark sking and followed alpine ski racing. I heard several inspirational storied on ski racing from time to time. One such story came from a young lady in Vermont named Kelly Brush. She was a talented young racer (who also used to ski on Rossi alpine race gear) who was skiing for Middlebury College. In one of the eastern Carnival races she had a tragic fall and slid into a lift tower, breaking her back and becoming a paraplegic like me. After some hard work and a lot of rehab, she got back to school, back into skiing and with the help of friends and family started a non-profit foundation, the Kelly Brush Foundation. The foundation has several goals.
The KBF focuses on Helping people with Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) get back into their sport by helping to fund adaptive equipment, Helping to fund ski racing safety programs (it is very likely that the snow fencing and lift tower pads you ski by during races at your local hill were funded by a grant from the KBF), Helping to fund SCI research and Helping to fund the US disabled ski team. All worthy goals. The big fundraiser for the foundation is coming up on September 10, 2011 in Middlebury, VT. It is a 100 mile bike ride. If you are into cycling, it is a great event. Some people form Alaska even made it over there last year to ride and told me how fun it was. If you are thinking of going back east this fall, or already happen to live there, I encourage you to sign up the ride and help this group raise funds for these 4 great causes. Information on the ride and such can be found HERE. I encourage you to go to the foundation website (it does need some professional help, but the foundation has commendably low overhead) at www.kellybrushfoundation.org an read up on the history and the story behind the foundation.
I have an interesting connection to the foundation’s namesake. I was travelling over to pick skis at Rossignol for our athletes when I first heard of her accident in 2006. In my own accident and SCI, I ended going to the same Craig Hospital as Kelly (it really is the best place in the country to get care and rehab for recovering from such an accident). In looking at her pictures on the foundation site, I even had the same doctors and therapists. It was surprising that they never told me about her during my stay at the hospital, knowing that I was into skiing so much. Also the reason I was hurt is that I was trying to make some ski trails safer for skiers by removing leaning and hazard trees, and a big focus of this foundation is safety on the ski hill…
