Winter aficionados skied for a good cause Sunday – four of them, actually.
With new snow on the mountain and more falling, Purgatory at Durango Mountain Resort’s second Locals Benefit Day of the season saw a spike in discounted lift-ticket sales, and proceeds from the day’s sales will benefit four nonprofit organizations from four locals days this year:
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southwest Colorado, Sexual Assault Services Organization, Annie’s Orphans Dog Shelter and Medicine Horse Center will receive benefits from ticket sales.
Kim Oyler, public relations director for DMR, said the resort likes to collaborate with local nonprofits to show its support of the community.
Ski enthusiasts like it as well.
“It’s a great effort, and they work together,” Oyler said about this year’s beneficiaries. “We definitely have a lot of locals come up, and I think they feel good about helping out as well.”
She said unlike previous years, this season, organizations participate together on all four benefit days, one in December, one in January, February and March.
“I think it’s really benefiting them,” she said, “making for a stronger push to get people up here.”
At a covered booth in the resort’s plaza, where members from the four entities shook hands, greeted skiers and warmed by a fire, Aubrey Beals of Big Brothers Big Sisters said her program focuses on building relationships with disadvantaged youth built on trust and mentoring, to make a difference in young people’s lives and to build a stronger community.
“We’re promoting more than just helping individual kids,” she said. “Those kids will graduate from high school and go into the workplace in the community.”
Beals said it doesn’t end there.
“Hopefully, they’ll give something back when they become adults.”
SASO Executive Director Maura Doherty Demko said she was honored to be selected from one of the scores of applicants.
“The big thing for us is really connecting with the community,” Demko said, “so they know who we are.”
SASO works with victims of sexual assault and in community education.
“We get to see a lot of great people coming up here, and we get to say thank you for supporting us in the process,” Demko said.
Barb Wolfe and Mimi Thurston, both with Medicine Horse Therapeutic Riding and Rehabilitation Center, said the money will help run their two locations in Durango and Mancos. In 2013, the center, in its 14th year of operation, matched 250 people with a variety of developmental disabilities with horses as a tool for therapy.
“It’s an equine-assisted therapy program,” Wolfe said. “We take individuals with therapy issues, put them with a horse and a team of horse professionals and therapists and help them with their healing.”
Thurston called it a loving place.
“It’s very effective,” she said. “You see people just blossom with the horses.”
Wolfe called it a different kind of therapy for people of all ages and challenges. Working with animals adds benefits that clients don’t get in traditional settings.
“They don’t sit eyeball to eyeball with a therapist,” she said. “They get to be in a beautiful environment with a good animal that can hold their issues.”
Ru, an affectionate mixed-breed canine from the no-kill dog shelter Annie’s Orphans, didn’t seem to mind the snow. Accompanied by Jol Schraub and Hailey Matney, Ru was rescued from euthanization in the nick of time in Dulce, N.M. Schraub described Durangoans as “heartfelt.”
“A lot of the time, the animal organizations are considered to be not as important,” she said. “I’ve been doing fundraising for Annie’s for a long time, and it’s tough out there, but the people of this town are incredibly generous.”
Proceeds will be divided at the end of the season, Oyler said. Beals said she hopes to raise as much as $5,000 for her program.
Demko called the four groups fortunate.
“It’s an amazing thing we have,” she said. “A great community, great organizations in the community, and we get to celebrate that on the mountain, skiing in beautiful weather.”
bmathis@durangoherald.com
