NEWS
ADAPTIVE SPORTS FOUNDATION - Awareness Weekend at Windham Mountain Club
WINDHAM - Gwen Allard Adaptive Sports Center at the Windham Mountain Club held “Awareness Weekend,” January 18 & 19, celebrating their 41st year and honoring the late Harvey Silverman, their first chairman, also using the occasion to raise operational funding. Welcoming skiers and snowboarders are (left to right) program/reservations manager Ginny Scahill and executive director John Iannelli. The Center and its Foundation offer year-round recreational and rehabilitative opportunities for individuals with cognitive and physical disabilities, helping providing 4,000 lessons a year, impacting 300 families, also being deeply involved in the Wounded Warriors program, being there for war-torn veterans in all seasons including winter trips to the slopes and summer camps. “Many people come to us thinking they can’t do these things. They go back home having found out they can. That impacts the way they think about their lives in a meaningful way,” Iannelli says. The late Gwen Allard founded the Adaptive Sports program.
Sitting down on the “job” is not considered slacking when using the specially designed ski sled provided through the Adaptive Sports Foundation, allowing folks who would otherwise be merely watching to instead experience skiing and snowboarding. Spreading the word about their multi-season programming for children and adults with physical and cognitive disabilities are volunteers (left to right) Dorothy Hughes, Richard Pallisco, Zachary Elder and Meghan Hughes-McGann. When the snow melts, the Foundation continues its work, offering an 8-week skateboarding clinic in collaboration with world-class skateboarder John O’Connor who grew up in Windham, returning home to pay it forward.Windham Mountain Club was busy last weekend, but never too busy to accommodate Adaptive Sports Foundation activities including an important fundraising event to empower the lives of individuals with disabilities. Among the team of ski slope Guest Services personnel is Lynn Puccio.
The slopes were waiting for Matthew Colella (center) and his specially-designed, 4-track outrigger for another run on the Windham Mountain Club slopes, having thus far had a “zero falls” ski day, according to volunteer instructor Brendan Gallagher (left), joined by James Mitchell, the Adaptive Sports Foundation (ASF) fundraising and social media director. Colella, traveling to Windham from Long Island, is part of the ASF race team.