WHY would you want to help VASS achieve its mission of “Making the mountains accessible to all”? Here’s a quick 30 seconds of reason. We change lives and you can see it happen seven days week, from January through March on our North Shore Vancouver Mountains.
One of the coolest things about partnering with VASS, is that you can grab a few of your team and come visit us and see how impactful your contributions are. VASS is 100% funded through a combination of our mountain relationships, corporate partnerships, grants, individual donations and fundraising initiatives. We have four major costs in providing our services: lift tickets, training, staff and equipment.
Lift tickets are taken care of via our mountain relationships; and a giant thank you to Grouse Mountain, Cypress Mountain and Mount Seymour.
We train more instructors every year, than any other adaptive snow sports organization in Canada. We train over 100 new CADS 1 ski or snowboard instructors every year. This is facilitated internal as we invest into our higher level instructors and course conductor leadership team. To maintain high standards and continue to be on the cutting edge of our sports, this team annually attends training conferences provided by Canadian Adaptive Snowsports, Canadian Ski Instructor Alliance, Canadian Association of Snowboard Instructors, Ski Spectacular in Denver and Mt Hood Ski and Ride Summit in Oregon.
We run a very lean team of paid staff. There is an executive director who doubles as one of the highest certified instructor trainers in Canada. And to make sure we are always fiscally responsible, we have a part-time controller…. that is it. Just 2 people to help facilitate all of this magic.
Our equipment that assists people with disabilities is second to none. Our biggest ticket items are sit skis, with the average cost being around $8000.
In 2021/22 we are adding the first in Canada Tetraski to our fleet which is a sit ski that can be controlled by joystick or sip and puff technology. We have partnered with a university in Utah to help bring this project to Canada. It as officially launched in the 2022 season.
We continue to always investigate and source any new technologies that can make the mountains accessible for all. We have just acquired an iskibike to assess the need and advantages to our students.
To learn more about how you can help support VASS click here.