Chris Anthony: You may recognize his name through his many movies with Warren Miller but these days he’s up to much bigger adventures if you can imagine that! Chris is a Colorado native and longtime Vail resident. For a good portion of his life Chris competed at an international level and traveled as an athlete and on-screen personality with the Warren Miller Film Team. He’s also been a VBSR regular customer since longer than we can recall. He brings his pals in the shop, gets tunes and takes laps with Sacha on occasion. This past summer Chris and Sacha took a trip to Norway – a winter ski trip.
His latest venture brings kids to the slopes through youth empowerment. Learn about the Chris Anthony Youth Initiative in his own words.
“S.T.E.Ming Creative Education and Using Indoor Skiing as a Tool.”
Nineteen years ago Colorado Ski Country asked me if I would be the spokesperson for one of their products, “The 5th Grade Passport Program,” a wonderful initiative, which allows all the Fifth Graders in the State of Colorado to ski for free. They did not have a job description for me, so I came up with one. I designed a classroom experience for the kids to be inspired by from a mentor. Nineteen years later I have spoken to over 50,000 students ranging from Kindergarten to University. Now the school program that I designed functions under a project of the Colorado Non-Profit Development Center with the title of, Chris Anthony Youth Initiative Project. In essence it stands, as it own and functions as a non-profit with it’s own budget. A budget that I have grown over time with the help of individual donations and one annual event I hold in Denver at the Bluebird Theater every fall thank you to the help of AEG.
In 2016 I was asked to be a speaker at VailTEDx in Beaver Creek, Colorado. I focused my speech on the Chris Anthony Youth Initiative Project. Watch my talk.
The Chris Anthony Youth Initiative Project is heading into its fourth year . Operating under its own management, it evolves quickly. The last 4 years the Youth Project has expanded beyond the classroom into the field. Students are not only inspired from the classroom presentation, they now have the opportunity to experience the lesson.
School Year Experiential Component
This coming school year, 2016-2017, I have recruited several educators to design a STEM Education lesson plan to line up with an experiential component. One of the big experiential components is skiing (Are you surprised?). As one of Brand Ambassadors for an new Denver indoor ski facility, SNOBAHN, there’s no better way to tie students to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics than taking them skiing on and indoor rotating ramp. Learn to ski indoors and rub elbows with fellow SNOBAHN brand ambassadors, Bode Miller and Erik Schlopy.
Chris Anthony Youth Initiative Project and the SNOBAHN experience have received much media accolades. Watch the story on KDTV COLORADO’S BEST.
Learn more about Chris:
Please join us in saying hello to Chris when you’re next in the shop for Vail Rental Skis or a Vail ski tune.
