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https://www.srf.ch/news/gesellschaft/unbegleitete-minderjaehrige-vom-asylalltag-auf-die-piste

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Owner and Chair of the Board for Burton, Donna Carpenter, is uncensored, unapologetically herself, and boy do we like it. For some reason, almost all of us snowboarders have something in common. Regardless of our upbringing, snowboarding has been there for us to turn to in rough times and in good. Many of us have found a family through snowboarding and no matter who you are, you have a space here. Since day one, Donna has been committed to not only creating but cultivating and supporting this culture we all know as home. We dive into the history of Burton, their biggest challenges, and everything you need to know about Donna Carpenter. So sit down and buckle up for the conversation of the century on this week’s episode of The Bomb Hole!

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Burton Snowboards, the trailblazing snowboarding company that calls Burlington, Vermont, its home was founded by the late Jake Burton Carpenter in 1977.

This year, the Boston Celtics are celebrating their 77th year of existence. So a collaboration between these two New England sports heavyweights seems only fitting.

Carpenter; his wife, Donna, now Burton’s owner; and their three sons have held Celtics season tickets for 29 years, giving any tickets they couldn’t use over the years to Burton employees. When the Celtics won the NBA Finals in 2008, Jake and Donna were in attendance and stood on TD Garden’s iconic parquet floor.

On Tuesday, Burton released a limited-edition MINE77 x Celtics Floor Board, the center and sidewalls of which are built from the same wood flooring from that 2008 NBA Finals court.

The Celtics debuted the board at their game against the New York Knicks, with team rider and Burlington resident Zeb Powell in attendance.

When snowboarding and basketball collide

JB linked up with Zeb Powell before the game pic.twitter.com/4QqsXbFBNt

— Boston Celtics (@celtics) November 13, 2023

Not that you’d want to do anything but hang this board on your wall, but if one were inclined to ride it, it’s a twin-tip camber board with a sintered base, with plenty of pop and responsiveness.

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Cole Ogutu, right, and Ben Clark, Chill’s CEO, at Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood, OR. Courtesy photo.

Vermont Business Magazine Chill Foundation, a 501c3 non-profit youth development organization is partnering with Burton Snowboards on a five-day giving campaign launching on November 29th to raise support for a new era of programming for Chill that focuses on helping young people build careers in the outdoor industry.

After almost 30 years of introducing youth to boardsports at no cost, Chill is expanding its focus to include leadership and professional development opportunities in the outdoor industry for Chill alumni. Chill plans to offer participants career opportunities like informational interviews, introductions to hiring managers, training and certification in mountain operations and avalanche rescue, and much more.

“Both Chill and Burton are focused on increasing diversity in boardsports by opening doors to participation and job opportunities in the industry,” said Donna Carpenter, owner of Burton and co-founder of Chill. “By offering Chill alumni the chance to gain outdoor-industry job skills, make connections and find mentorships, our hope is that more Chill participants will land their future dream jobs.” 

The fundraising partnership between Chill and Burton seeks to effect change in the outdoor space and address the lack of representation of Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC) in the boardsports community by increasing access and connecting Chill participants and alumni to career pathways in the outdoor industry. 

A centerpiece of the fundraising campaign is a video capturing a day of snowboarding for Chill alumni, Cole Ogutu, and Ben Clark, Chill’s CEO, at Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood, OR. 

The two trade laps on the mountain and talk about Cole’s path through the juvenile justice system, learning to snowboard in Chill’s Salt Lake City program, and becoming a lift operator at the mountain where he learned to ride. They also discuss what’s ahead for Chill – deepening the organization’s connections with community partners and schools and creating pathways to employment opportunities for participants and alumni. 

Chill’s goal is to raise $200,000 this holiday season to support programming around its expanded mission.

“Chill is thrilled to be teaming up with Burton on this important campaign to fuel our work inspiring young people through boardsports and building a more equitable outdoor community,” says Ben Clark, Chill’s CEO. “Meaningfully addressing the systemic barriers that have excluded many BIPOC and other individuals from participating in the outdoors requires an all-hands on deck approach. We are hopeful that many who share our passion for snowboarding, boardsports, and the outdoors, will join our efforts and invest in our work.”

About the Chill Foundation

Chill’s mission is to inspire young people through boardsports and build a more equitable outdoor community. Founded by Jake and Donna Carpenter of Burton Snowboards in 1995, Chill has served more than 30,000 participants in 20 locations across 9 countries. Chill’s programs pair a core value curriculum with the excitement of learning snowboarding, skateboarding, surfing, and paddleboarding to promote personal growth, connection to the outdoors, and a supportive community to enjoy it with. Chill covers all costs and fosters strong alliances with community organizations, schools, and boardsport partners so youth can have as much fun as possible while learning new skills. www.chill.org

About Burton

In 1977, Jake Burton Carpenter founded Burton Snowboards out of his Vermont barn and dedicated the rest of his life to snowboarding. Since its founding, Burton has played a pivotal role in growing snowboarding from a backyard hobby to a world-class sport by creating groundbreaking products, supporting a team of top snowboarders and pushing resorts to allow snowboarding. Today, Burton designs and manufactures industry-leading products for snowboarding and the outdoors. As a sustainability leader within the outdoor and winter sports industries, Burton is the world’s first snowboard company to become a certified B Corporation®. Privately held and owned by Donna Carpenter, Burton’s headquarters are in Burlington, Vermont with offices in Austria, Japan, Australia, Canada and China. For more information on Burton, head to www.burton.com.

Source: (Burlington, Vermont) – November 28, 2023 –Chill Foundation

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This story is by Bridget Higdon, and was published on https://www.samessenger.com/ on July 24, 2023. You can view the original HERE

SWANTON — “Do you want to drop in on this box?” Gunner Yandow called to a group of young skaters.

A few shook their heads eagerly yes while others took a shy step backward.

Last Wednesday, the word of the day was “courage” during youth skateboarding lessons with the Chill Foundation in Swanton.

Hailey Dubuque, Chill’s Burlington program and community coordinator, said the lesson kicked off with a discussion of how important it is to be courageous enough to step out of your comfort zone and into the “growth zone.”

“The growth zone is where you challenge yourself while still feeling safe,” she said.

Chill and its team of adult mentors is in Swanton for three weeks this month teaching local kids how to skate at Marble Mill Park. Started in 1995 by Jake and Donna Carpenter, founders of Burton Snowboards, the foundation strives to remove barriers to accessing boardsports by providing youth with everything they need to get after it, at no cost.

Chill supplies participants with skateboards, pads and helmets, as well as drinks and snacks. Locally, Swanton Recreation and the Abenaki of Missisquoi helped coordinate the event.

“This opportunity is made possible because of the great network of community partners Swanton has,” said Nicole Draper, Swanton’s rec director. “We want to make sure that all areas of interest have an opportunity to be explored. Skateboarding, in particular, is a lifetime sport and a great way to stay physically active.”

Faith Dubois, community health worker for the Abenaki, said she loves the self-confidence and physical skills the program gives to kids.

“And I like seeing the fun, positive interactions our youth have with the adult instructors and mentors,” she said.

Standing at the edge of the park clutching his skateboard, Jayce Wickam Keller, age 12, was working on not being scared of the banked wall, which other kids were using to drop into the park.

“The growth zone is a good thing,” he said. “It will help me get better at skateboarding.”

Yandow, who participated in Chill’s skateboarding program when he was a kid, provided advice and encouragement to each young skater, along with mentor Grace Brown and Dubuque.

Aidan Allen, age 11, said Chill’s instructors were helpful, and his favorite part of the sport so far is “going up hills and riding down.”

In addition to “courage,” the Chill program discusses five other core values: respect, patience, persistence, responsibility and pride.

“We are lucky to have the Chill Foundation to help educate our young people on how to be safe while skateboarding, but also to share their positive message, which empowers youth to be active and engaged members of our community,” Draper said.

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Aiming to diversify the slopes and make the sport more accessible, Red Bull Tour stops at Copper Mountain.

Zeb Powell gets funky while riding at the Red Bull Slide-In Tour at Copper Mountain on March 4, 2023. Photo by Brian Nevins, Red Bull Content Pool

When it comes to progressing in snowboarding, sometimes all it takes is going for it.

Surrounded by a throng of like-minded riders launching through the terrain park doing exactly that, Deonte Westcott, an 18-year-old Aurora resident, hits his first-ever frontside 180 off a rail. “I just got caught up in the moment,” he says.

Westcott was one of several local teenagers participating in the Red Bull Slide-In Tour, which made its national debut at Copper Mountain last week. The Tour—masterminded by Winter X Games gold medalist Zeb Powell with a mission to spread the love of snowboarding, increase accessibility to the sport, and diversify the slopes—launched on the East Coast five years ago.

Zeb Powell signs an autograph for Deonte Westcott at the Red Bull Slide-In Tour at Copper Mountain. Photo by Shauna Farnell

Along with Maggie Leon, Brantley Mullins, Brolin Mawejje and a handful of other competitive snowboarders, Powell spent the day with the teens lapping Copper’s Woodward terrain park as a collective, gleeful pack.

“There’s not much to it,” says Powell, who won a gold medal at the 2020 X Games Knuckle Huck. “We radiate this energy that makes people want to come ride with us. They’re like, ‘Can you do this? Can you teach me this?’ It’s really so simple. It’s just getting together and having fun. They give me the hype, I give it right back. You radiate that energy, it’ll radiate right back to you. It’s contagious.”

The young riders at the Slide-In clinic had already notched some snowboard experience thanks to the Chill Foundation, an organization launched by Burton founders Jake and Donna Carpenter with the goal of introducing snowboarding and other sports to youth who might not otherwise have the resources to get involved. The organization has 22 locations across North America. The teens participating in the Copper Slide-In clinic were members of Chill’s Denver branch.

“Honestly, whether you’re learning how to stop for the first time, hitting your first flat box, or learning now to nollie, everyone has the same energy and excitement,” says Leon, who is a Chill ambassador and Burton-sponsored snowboarder (as well as an engineer for the company, specializing in equipment innovations for adaptive snowboarders).

“With the Chill Foundation, it’s very progression-based,” Leon says. “Everyone is at different skill [levels], but still learns together and pushes each other. Diversifying the mountain is the goal here, showcasing that anyone can get out here and do it. We’re really pushing to get more girls in the park. It can be intimidating. We’re trying to add that sense of security and encourage them.”

Lili Nielsen, a 14-year-old Alameda International High School student, learned to snowboard two years ago with the Chill Foundation. Before the Slide-In clinic, she considered herself an intermediate rider. During the clinic, she started hitting jumps.  “I’m learning park right now, focusing on those skills. With Chill, I get to go on these awesome adventures. I’ve made a lot of unexpected friends,” she says.

Westcott also began snowboarding with the Chill Foundation two years ago. Although he grew up a fan of the sport, he never had the chance to try it when he was younger. “It was basically my whole avenue into this sport,” he says. “If I wanted to do this sport without Chill, it would probably take a lot longer, and I’d probably be a lot older when I got there.” He says he used to feel self-conscious about being one of few Black snowboarders on the slopes, but riding with Powell and the diverse crew at the Chill Foundation eliminates any uneasiness.

“It’s getting a lot better because I’m seeing more of us out here,” Westcott said. “It’s not like we’re all uncomfortable because we’re all singled out. I feel like now, with how many people who have gotten into the sport, we’ve gotten a more stable community. It’s like we have a color wheel now. We don’t have a gentrified sport.

A Colorado native, Zach Pierre-Louis recently became the community coordinator for Denver’s Chill Foundation after teaching a group of kids from the program how to snowboard when he was an instructor at Loveland Ski Area. “I grew up in a similar situation,” he says. “I didn’t have the opportunity to go snowboarding. It’s a high cost of entry and my parents couldn’t afford it. I thought this program that found people who were interested in the sport and provided them with all the gear and transportation completely free of cost was really it for me. I was one of the kids and now I get to be that person to help get them on the snow. It’s complete full-circle. I think snowboarding should be for everybody and that everybody should at least try it. You might fall in love with it, like I did.”

Maggie Leon riding at the Red Bull Slide-In Tour at Copper Mountain on March 4, 2023. Photo by Brian Nevins, Red Bull Content Pool

Zeb Powell stops for a portrait at the Red Bull Slide-In Tour at Copper Mountain on March 4, 2023. Photo by Brian Nevins, Red Bull Content Pool

Growing up snowboarding in North Carolina, Powell never thought twice about being the first Black snowboarder to reach the highest level of the sport until it happened with his X Games victory. Now, his goal is to spread the love of the sport to one and all.

“I started leaning into the diversity side of it after I won X Games,” Powell says. “It was on such a big stage, a lot of people saw it. I got a lot of people reaching out like, ‘Hey, I didn’t even know Black people snowboarded. You’re such an inspiration to me.’ For me, the way I grew up, I just thought of snowboarding as snowboarding. Anyone can do it. I don’t care what you look like. So, for that to happen to me, I was like, Man, I’ve done everything I need to do. I can keep doing things with all my sponsors, but now I want to switch gears into welcoming diversity into the mountains.

“It’s about cruising and having fun. That’s how it was for me and that’s how I want to make it for everyone else.”

 

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Northglenn Middle School ELD teacher Megan Alvarez and a group of 8th grade newcomer multilingual students recently completed a six week long snowboarding program with the Chill Foundation at Copper Mountain. The Chill Foundation’s mission is “to inspire youth to overcome challenges through boardsports.” They participated in weekly snowboard lessons, social and emotional learning programming, and practiced a lot of authentic English skills. Each week covered a different theme, such as responsibility, patience, persistence, respect, and courage. They had so much fun learning new skills, making new friends, and spending time outside in the mountains.

An extra special thank you to Lisle Reed, Farid Stanikzai, Greg Mirelez, Phil Grover, Diana Brooks, and Lena de la Fuente of our Student and Family Outreach Program (SFOP) for helping with transportation so that the students could participate in this amazing opportunity. Thank you to NGMS teachers Brennen Williamson, Andrea Jacobsen, and Daniela Harton for helping chaperone and to our administrators for supporting this wonderful learning adventure!

This story exemplifies our ELEVATE Focus Area: Outside-the-Classroom Learning. Sharing stories about how the district offers students multiple learning opportunities outside the traditional classroom providing various pathways to success.

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An interview with Michaela Schmid

This story is by Nytaï Aidlin, and was published on Whiteout on March 30, 2022. You can view the original HERE.

Over the past few years we’ve done a good bit of introspection and started to get hung up on some philosophical questions — Is snowboarding a purely selfish pursuit? Is it just another way to feed our egos? Is it anything more than an escape from reality, fueled by rich kids and corporations?  

For more insight, we teamed up with Nytaï Aidlin, a young rider from Geneva with a lot of questions about snowboarding’s ability to address society’s challenges. The result is a series of interviews with people who run organizations that are focused on making snowboarding, and our world, a better place. His fourth conversation is with Michaela Schmid about diversity and her work with CHILL Foundation…

Hey Michaela! Can you present yourself and your connection with snowboarding?

I grew up in Davos. When I was 12 years old, I did a snowboard weekend course. I was hooked immediately. The cool thing was that in high school we had a lunch break from twelve to four, so I could spend almost every day on the mountain. I am really blessed that I could grow up in a ski resort!

After high school, I saved money to go snowboarding in Canada, and then did an Internship at PopCorn in Saas-Fee where I met Daniela Meyer and everything really started.

So what is the CHILL Foundation exactly? Isn’t it directly related to Burton?

That is correct. Donna and Jake Burton Carpenter founded CHILL Foundation back in 1995. At the beginning, it was more of a, “how to snowboard” program, but soon they started to do more than that. They opened the classes to marginalized youth to offer access to sports such as snowboarding, surfing, and skateboarding at no-cost at all. They also intentionally implemented core values in the educational structure to engage a change of perspective.

A change of perspective through snowboarding?

Exactly. The CHILL program focuses on six life-values: respect, courage, patience, persistence, responsibility and pride. Each day, a lesson is focused on one specific value.

Today, it was about courage. The course started with the bus ride where we did a little group exercise to discuss and reflect on the daily values. We also implemented the core values during the day with warm ups and special snowboard exercises that have something to do with courage. At the end of the day, we encouraged some reflection by asking questions like, “From this experience, what could be transferred into our daily lives? What can we learn from it?”

In many ways, snowboarding reflects life’s challenges. In life, you try and fall. So, you have to stand up again. In snowboarding, it’s just the same. You fall, but you stand up and try again until you make it.

That’s an inspiring way to see snowboarding! Who are the young people that you are working with?

At the moment, we mainly work with youth refugees staying in transit centers. When arriving in Switzerland, refugees stay in a federal asylum center while their asylum request is examined. After receiving confirmation, or after 140 days, refugees are distributed among the cantons to be taken care of in what we call transit centers. Some of them are fully dedicated to minors.

We’ve chosen these institutions because they are probably the ones where the youth will benefit the most from the CHILL program. Also, the centers have their own schools where they can adapt the program for the kids. It was important for us to give them the full experience.

Do you expect that these special snowboard courses will impact these young people’s lives?

That would be nice! It will probably not impact everyone’s lives, but I’m sure that there are some participants who will change their views on certain things. Although it is really hard to make a change happen in such a short period of time, it is actually possible!

Carlos is a great example. He lived in the L.A. area in an environment with a few to no opportunities, one where it is so easy to fall into a criminal path. In 2002 and 2003, he participated in CHILL L.A. and spent 12 days following the program. After that, he was invited by Burton to the U.S. Open in Vermont with other participants from CHILL. These 12 days, plus the visit at the US Open changed many things in his life. Today, he is living in Innsbruck with his wife and teaching snowboarding to his kid! Who would expect such a life path from a young guy from L.A.’s marginalized suburbs?

Meeting him reinforced my belief that it is possible to make an impact with this 6-day program. It may not happen for everyone, but there will be some kids who fully profit from these lessons and experiences.

That is so great. It’s nice to see snowboarders working to make snowboarding more accessible!

Yes, and it is really rewarding. I recently saw the movie Dear Rider, which made me realize how much snowboarding meant to me. I was actually not aware of how much it impacted my life. It made me want to spread the love for snowboarding to other people even more and transmit the passion. By doing so, we don’t only teach a sport, but also a positive lifestyle helping us to navigate life.

And we often forget how difficult it can be to access snowboarding…

Unfortunately, the cost related to snowboarding makes the barriers to entry super high. Luckily, we can count on the great contribution of Laax to support our project. They offer snowboard instructors, material and food, while Burton arranges the clothes and CHILL the overall organization.

There are also other ways to enter the community, through skateboarding for example. Luca Kuppelwieser, who also works on the CHILL project in Laax, recently co-founded the organization Passiun. They want to help refugees integrate in Switzerland through skate classes in Laax. That’s such a great initiative!

If you don’t know someone who is passionate about snowboarding or skateboarding, it is hard to get into the sport. I hope that with CHILL, we can be this gatekeeper to more and more kids and make snowboarding more diverse.

That is indeed an important topic. I am impressed by the diversity of people that you are introducing to snowboarding: Afghans, Turks… It inevitably brings the following question: Is there a problem of diversity in snowboarding?

I don’t see it as a problem. I see it as a fact that there is a lack of diversity and that there is a lot of room for development.

If you look at the Swiss mountain communities, the people are mainly white. If you look at the pro riders and snowboard teams it’s the same. And we also have the gender gap… but that is the same all over the world. Back in the day, it was Italians coming to Switzerland. Nowadays, it’s people from Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria, or African countries. There will be more of these changes in the future.

It is a fact that diversity in snowboarding is not as good as it could be, but it also goes back to the connection that you have with snowboarding. Does everyone have the opportunity to snowboard? Is everyone even interested in joining this community, and learning how to snowboard?

Sometimes the answer is yes… An example of that is Arlinda, one of our volunteers with CHILL Switzerland. She was a refugee from Kosovo when she arrived in Switzerland at the age of 5. She was lucky to be introduced to snowboarding, and today she’s giving back here with CHILL!

From refugee to a snowboard enthusiast, that is inspiring!

With that in mind, I personally don’t see the lack of diversity as a problem in itself, but more as a point of development. With CHILL, we work on offering everyone the opportunity to join snowboarding if they believe it is something for them. In the end, the snowboard scene also benefits from being more diverse. It gives a great example to the world for how we can include people, instead of excluding them.

Do you think that more can be done to diversify snowboarding?

Something truly special and great about our community is its open-mindedness. But at the same time, we live in our bubble, a sort of happy land where we think that racism doesn’t exist. Systematic racism exists in underlying ways, even in our community.

I think that CHILL really raises awareness for those topics. Since I work with them, I am more aware of the question of diversity and what it means to bring someone new to the mountains. If we cannot change the world, we need to at least encourage people to give this topic a thought.

Thanks for your time and great insights Michaela. I hope you’ll continue to have a lot of success with this program! 

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Thinking back about what snowboarding has given us, not only as a tool to be able to enjoy nature but also the community it has opened us up to, it has helped to shape many of us into the person we are today.

“I feel like there’s a conversation that needs to be had about the lack of women in sports, the lack of people of colour in sports, and through my music I want to highlight the lack of diversity in sports and the gender inequality we are seeing within sport in general”

Miranda Writes, a hip hop artist from New York, found snowboarding to be a way for her to escape the grimes, a no-judgement zone where she could just be herself. Through her music and work for the Chill Foundation, she wants to make the sport more visible and accessible for people.

We sat down with Miranda to talk about her music, her work with the Chill Foundation and what she’s doing to help make snowboarding and the outdoors a safer place for people from different backgrounds, ethnicities and genders.

Would you mind telling us a bit about who you are, what you do…
I’m a hip hop artist and I also happen to snowboard. I started making more extreme sports-inspired music because I felt like I didn’t really know any women that snowboarded, so it was just a way of trying to find other riders who were like me. It just became this movement and me making that music was a way to connect with people. I feel like there’s a conversation that needs to be had about the lack of women in sports, the lack of people of colour in sports, and through my music, I want to highlight the lack of diversity in sports and the gender inequality we are seeing within sport in general.

To read the full interview click HERE

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