2014 Grass Roots Grants Winners!

The 2014 Grass Roots Grants voting cycle has come to a close, and we are excited to announce this years $5,000 grant recipients! Congratulations to Beyond Boarding, Mountain Riders Alliance, and the Peaks Project. These organizations embody all of the values that we hold dear at Alpine Initiatives. Here is a brief description of this year’s winners and their projects:

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Beyond Boarding



Beyond Boarding’s Sacred Stewardship is a program in partnership with local elders and families. This snowshoe-split board exploration program in the mountain community of Iskut, BC, inspires youth by connecting them with the outdoors and providing them with valuable knowledge about local environmental and conservation issues. By reconnecting them to their families' traditional lands, language and culture, this program produces new stewards of the Sacred Headwaters area in North Western BC.

Mountain Riders Alliance



The Mountain Rider’s Alliance is guided by a triple-bottom-line philosophy of environmental stewardship, community engagement and a rider-centric approach. Since the 1980’s, roughly one third of US ski areas have closed. Smaller, community-based hills have been particularly hard hit, as have the surrounding mountain communities and local economies. In response, the Mountain Playground program is being developed to create a consortium of like-minded, independent ski areas, which collaborate to keep mountain communities and their treasured recreational resources economically, socially and environmentally stable.

The Peaks Project



The Peaks Project gives underprivileged children in NYC the opportunity to participate in winter sports, specifically skiing and snowboarding, while promoting camaraderie and personal growth. The Peaks Project differs from other organizations in that it works with the same group of children throughout an entire winter. This allows participants to gain proficiency in various snow sports while developing a deeper connection to the mountains and the greater winter sports community.

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Alpine Initiative’s Grass Roots Grants helps the change makers, the startups, and the active volunteers harness and organize their energy to make their goals a reality. We would like to send out a huge thank you to everyone who voted! Your participation is more than just a vote; you are helping to create tangible change throughout our North American mountain communities.

Our voter turnout totaled roughly 17,000, making this year our most successful year yet! Also a big thanks to this years grant sponsors Armada, Oakley, and SmartWool. We will be launching another Grass Roots Grant cycle within the next couple of months so stay tuned for further details.