Snowy skies and fresh powder greeted 40 enthusiastic students from the Steamboat Springs School District’s emerging/bilingual program, who spent the day on the slopes of Steamboat Resort on Feb. 1 and Feb. 8.

Through a program developed by Marin Shanahan, an emergent/bilingual teacher at Steamboat Middle School, students are introduced to skiing and snowboarding, and given the essential tools needed to begin learning the sport. Shanahan envisioned an activity to make skiing accessible for her multilingual middle school students and give them a positive outlet to exercise and spend time with friends in the winter months — and develop an appreciation for the environment.

“I just had this passion to make this available,” Shanahan said. “I started calling local businesses and Christy Sports immediately jumped on board. The Yampa Valley Community Foundation helped find the other donor.”

---

---

Through the generosity of area businesses, the city of Steamboat Springs and Steamboat Resort, students receive discounted rental rates of $30 for ski gear. Christy Sports discounted rentals, which were further subsidized by Dirt to Snow and the Steamboat Group, enabling students to ski for two days a season at Steamboat Resort and each Sunday at Howelsen Hill.

The two days of skiing at the Steamboat ski area was a reward for successful completion of the ACCESS test, a language acquisition assessment taken annually. Steamboat Resort provided complimentary lift tickets to the students to allow them to participate.

---

---

Students were greeted by the Young Guns Ski Program — instructors at Steamboat Resort who provided lessons to the students. Several students, because of their growing skiing proficiency throughout the season, progressed to Level 7, allowing them to ski blue runs on the mountain.

“Young Guns is a great program to help our EB students to celebrate their completion of ACCESS,” said Lucy Hackman, an emerging bilingual specialist at Sleeping Giant School. “Students from both Steamboat Springs Middle School and Sleeping Giant School got a chance to ski with their peers. I look forward to continuing this partnership with the mountain and hope we can add a couple more days next year. After two days, students are just starting to get the feel of it.”

“It took a lot of community involvement to make all this happen,” Shanahan said. “This program is fostering the love of our mountains for our youth, getting them off their phones/devices and teaching them to explore and participate in what this great mountain town has to offer in the winter.”  

This is the third year the multilingual ski program has taken place. Shanahan noted that one of the groups came from six different countries, “showing that Steamboat is becoming a much more diverse community.”

In addition to the two days at Mt. Werner, the students can use the donated rental equipment to ski at Howelsen Hill on Sundays. This allowed many of the students the opportunity to improve their abilities and become more confident skiers as well as appreciate alpine sports.

“I am so happy that all of these community groups came together to provide this experience,” Shanahan said.

The program has expanded to include sixth grade students at Sleeping Giant as well. Shanahan shared appreciation for the support of school administration for the program.

“Additional staff were allowed to accompany the students this year, which was a great help in organizing the day on the mountain. There has been tremendous support for our program by our administration.”

While putting on his ski boots to begin his day of adventure, sixth grade student Luis Gonzalez Aguilar proudly declared, “I hope to be the first Spanish-speaking student from Sleeping Giant to go to the Olympics.”

Without a doubt, this dream could not be fostered without the support of the many community groups who came together to make the program possible.