SKI JAMIN, INC. stands for Ski Institute for Junior American Minority Inner-City Neighborhoods. We are a 501(c)(3) non-profit Winter Sports Program that is designed to inspire, educate and create new experiences for underserved, at-risk, minority inner-city youth, ages 9 to 14 to participate in winter sports. Our program provides access and instruction to ski and snowboarding areas, in an effort to establish equal opportunity, regardless of financial, geographical or racial challenges. Our goal is not only to enrich the lives of our students but their families as well.
There are three main obstacles that prevent underserved inner-city children from involvement in outdoor winter sports. First, there is the absence of knowledge, primarily due to no ancestral history of winter sport participation. Secondly, there is a lack of accessibility due to geographical location, and finally, the expense of travel, equipment and clothing is not affordable when the inner-city household income generally falls below the Federal Poverty threshold.
Our Winter Sports Program eliminates the above obstacles by setting up dry land ski and board clinics in local city parks to introduce the children to ski safety and on the slope etiquette. We provide the needed transportation from the city into the mountains on ski days and collect donated equipment and clothing from our two local ski resorts to outfit the children head to toe for the snow.
The evidence of gang violence is on the rise in our communities. Taking the inner-city youth out of a gang infested neighborhoods, to the mountains to ski one day each week during the winter season, provides them a safe haven and refuge away from the violence. Skiing and snowboarding are considered to be individual sports that do not carry the pressures of team sports. When each child progressively improves in skiing/boarding it comes by challenging themselves. If they fall down they learn to get up and try again. The process begins to build self-confidence and self reliance that are both life-long skills needed to resist peer pressure and avoid gang involvement.
