Pico school program gives kids the gift of skiing and snowboarding

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By Brooke Geery

Not every kid in Vermont gets the chance to ski or snowboard, but Pico Mountain’s school program aims to change that. Since 2016, the resort has worked with area schools to bring groups of K-8 students to the mountain to experience sports, as part of the resort’s Play Forever commitment.

By Brooke Geery, courtesy of Killington Resort
A Pico snowboard instructor helps a student learn to stand up and find balance.

Andy Haskell, director of the Pico Ski and Snowboard School, himself followed a similar program in the 1970s and has been obsessed with skiing ever since. His desk is decorated with thank you drawings sent in by students, and he beams with pride when he talks about the program, which thousands of people have gone through.

“A few years ago, when we were doing this, there were 150 children all coming at the same time. It was a madhouse,” he said. “They were right there on the towline, and it was awesome, so much fun. At the end of the day, I don’t particularly care how many skills they get, I want to hook them!”

Each student participating in the program receives rentals, six-and-a-half-hour lessons and a pass valid for 12 days on the snow. The cost for each student is $99, and this is covered by the schools.

“We’ve known for many, many years that it’s not a source of income for us,” Haskell said, “but it’s so important to expose local kids to what we’re doing here, who normally don’t have not that opportunity.Stats show that when you start skiing with kids when they are in kindergarten, the likelihood of them sticking with it is so much higher than even if you start the kids in grade 7 or 8 .

Of the six schools participating in the program this season, none have embraced it as wholeheartedly as Orwell Village School. The K-8 establishment initially brought in its entire student body – nearly 120 children. Unfortunately Covid-19 halted the program mid-season in 2019/20, it took a pandemic break in 2020/21 and for 2021/22 it was reduced so that a single school group of 50 children could participate at once. Orwell changed his approach, putting the students together in two groups – grades 4-6 one day and grades 3, 7 and 8 another.

Orwell program director and school board member Peter Stone said the program was a hit with almost everyone.

“Out of the whole school there were maybe 15 kids who could go skiing, and thanks to the program you now have all these other kids who can go. We had a family of four students who weren’t skiing because their parents didn’t ski, but now that the kids have started skiing, their parents have realized they can take their kids on other days,” Stone said.

Initially, funding for the program at Orwell was due to a local mom who loved skiing herself so much that she wanted to let every child have fun. She raised funds with other townspeople to make it happen. It was so successful that the school took over, and now there is enough money allocated in the school budget to not only cover the cost of the program, but also to transport every student to Pico.

The program not only benefits children, but also parents, Stone explained.

“For parents who have never skied before, it can be intimidating to take their children to the mountains because they just don’t know what it’s all about. Even if (Pico) is very useful, it’s still a lot for someone who has never done it. Many parents volunteered to help and they also got to see what skiing is all about. We have had parents who have taken the training and become Pico instructors. Some of them continued after the program ended and gave classes on other weekends.

This season, Pico Mountain can accommodate and instruct 50 students in both morning and afternoon sessions on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays.

Haskell is just happy to have the program back this season and hopes it returns to the participation levels seen early on.

“I definitely plan to expand in the future when the world gets back to a bit of a normalcy. Hopefully we will have more staff to recruit as it is a very popular program,” he said.

The biggest reward for Haskell is seeing the kids on the hill. The thank you letters they receive afterwards are a bonus.

“We received a letter from a girl Anika five or six years ago, about how discovering skiing changed her life,” he said. “A group of us still have it. It gets really deep; the emotion that you can take away from these children. That’s a good thing, especially these days when it seems like not every other kid has a two-parent family and they need some kind of structure. So coming here and learning that, they really take it.

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