This winter's warm weather and lack of snow in the Twin Cities won't stop the fun Saturday at Buck Hill as the 13th annual Gillette Children's Adaptive Ski Day gives children living with disabilities an opportunity to hit the slopes and experience the thrill of downhill skiing.
Since 2009 Padraig's Place Adaptive Winter Sports at Buck Hill has opened up its arms to skiers living with physical and cognitive disabilities. Brian and Eileen Foley named founded Padraig's Place, naming the nonprofit after their son Padraig who has Autism and some cognitive delay.
Brian Foley saw a need for an adaptive ski program back in the mid-2000's and approached Buck Hill about using the hill.
"They offered to help us as much as they could, but they weren't going to be able to give us any money," Foley said. "We created a nonprofit and started fundraising, asking anybody and everybody that I knew that knew how to ski to come help us."
Padraig's Place began with six students including Padraig. Pre-Covid, Foley says they were doing about 62 lessons per year with each lesson requiring a two-to-one ration, or three-to-one ratio depending on the student.
"In my greatest numbers are volunteers were up over 100," Foley said. "Now we're at about 75, so we're getting back there and rebuilding after Covid since we shutdown and couldn't ski. It was too risky for a lot of our participants."
Adaptive ski lessons take place for two hours throughout the week. Training is extensive when it comes to approaching adaptive ski lessons in order to understand how each individual will react to snow given their disabilities.
"Padraig's a good example," Foley said. "He has Autism and cognitive delay. He understands about skiing. He actually used to have a lot of anxiety and see the lights and throw-up in the van on the way here. Overtime, working with his medication and getting him so he wasn't so anxious about coming out to Buck Hill, he was excited to come out, but he was so excited we had a little bit of a problem there."
Connecting with Gillette Children's
As fate would have it Brian met Dr. Marcie Ward who is a Gillette pediatric rehabilitation medicine physician. Dr. Ward asked if Brian and his family skied as she was trying to get the family ski day set-up.
Little did Dr. Ward know that Brian has been in the retail ski industry for over two-decades, as well as the teaching side working at Buck Hill.
"We just started Padraig's Place and came up with the idea and it was perfectly found relationship."
Saturday mark's the 13th year that the family ski day will take patients, who have never been out on the snow, out to experience skiing and sliding. 30 people are expected to take part in this year's event.
"It is amazing to see families that they don't think their disabled child can do anything other than sit in a wheelchair, show expression of joy and happiness," Foley said. "It's that feeling of wind in your face. Kids with disabilities are always with personal aides, family members, or someone taking care of them. They don't have space to get away from people, but then they have the experience to have the wind in their face and make the skis go down the hill by themselves with the techniques we use."
Two types of sit-skis are used, including a bi-ski and a mono-ski. Each are used depending on the individuals abilities. There's also a slider, which looks like a walker, with skis attached to it.
There's also equipment such as bibs to let other skiers know about individuals who are blind or visually impaired.
"It can get interesting fast because the hill is usually pretty busy. A lot of our experienced volunteers have their set places depending on their students."
Getting Involved
Padraig's Place used to a ski race at Buck Hill to raise money. That race ended due to Covid and there aren't any plans for it to return.
Right now, Foley says they are looking for more volunteers and anyone who might want to donate time or money to help offset the high costs of adaptive winter equipment.
"A pair of skis for an average person could be $1,000 to $1,200," he said. "A bi-ski that we use could cost between $4,000 and $6,000. In the adaptive world, you put adaptive in front of the equipment name and it gets expensive really quickly, that's unfortunate. It's also about safety."
And even with this year's warm weather and lack of snow, the skiing has continued.
"Buck Hill can make snow and they made a ton of snow during this cold snap. It will stay and could get a little sloppy, but we'll ski regardless. We won't ski if it gets too cold, about 10 below zero because it gets too dangerous for everybody. Rain or shine, we'll ski. We have a limited window now in Minnesota, it used to be bigger, now it's 2 or 3 months."