Bruce Landes, Scott Martineau, Rob Court, Jim Talvy, Lindsay D'Anna and myself (Mike Hodge) had the pleasure of volunteering at Mount Sunapee, NH on January 11th to assist disabled veterans from across New England during their participation in an annual skiing event. Most of the skiers go from their wheelchairs to "buckets" or seats on skis and then need help getting around. We joined a couple of UPS drivers as volunteer "pushers". The "pushers" help move the skiers from the bottom of each run to the lifts again so that the instructors can catch their breath and regain some of their energy before getting on the lift again for another run.

I believe that I can speak for the group when I say that this was very rewarding. I think the event can basically be characterized by an incident that happened to me personally. I was pushing one of the adaptive skiers over to the lift when she essentially asked me to stop and give her a hug. She thanked me for my help and proceeded to get on the lift with her instructors, shouting "I am skiing!!!, I am skiing!!). When she finished her trip down the hill and was ready to be pushed back to the lift to do it all over again, you could feel the energy from her and her instructors. She was quite grateful for everyone participating. We worked pretty hard, but yes, since you are wondering... the three skiers in our group did get to sneak out between shifts and grab a couple of runs each. It was a great event.