A Community That Can Help You To Get Back To Athleticism.
What if you suffer a life altering brain, spinal or physically limiting injury and want to ski again? Where do you turn? One place is the High Fives Foundation started by Ray Tuscany who was a ski racer who broke his back.
After his injury, he founded High Fives to help create a community to get a skier (but it could be anyone or any athlete) through the recovery process. Tuscany is emphatic when he says High Fives doesn’t have clients or customers, they have athletes!
According to Tuscany, once you have clearance from your doctor and are in the best shape possible, they will help find the funding to get you back on the slopes. The foundation works with the rehab staff to create a plan and a budget for each athlete. To help achieve the athlete’s goals, it provides the financial support—typical grants average around $5,000—to help cover the expenses for adaptive equipment, training, and other bits and pieces to get you skiing again. The foundation pays the providers directly so they can accurately track and report back to their donors where and how the money was spent.
The organization is certified to operate in all fifty states and is headquartered in Truckee, CA. It has offices in Reno and Sugarbush, VT as well.
High Fives also has another program to help disabled vets learn to ski. Through its Military to the Mountains program, each year twenty-two injured veterans are selected by the Adaptive Training Foundation in Dallas and taken through a nine-week program to restore, recalibrate and re-deploy these injured warriors. Many become Paralympians.
For more information, contact Roy Tuscany at the High Fives Foundation at www.highfivesfoundation.org or at (530) 562 4270.
For vets who are interested in what the Adaptive Training Foundation has to offer, their web site is www.adaptivetrainingfoundation.org or you can call them at 214.432.1070.
Credit: HighFive
Note that the founder’s first name is Roy, not Ray as you have it in the first paragraph. Skiers can support the High Fives program by buying a pair of High Fives design skis from Parlor Skis, a custom ski maker based in Boston. Fifteen percent of every sale of this design goes to supporting the mission of High Fives. My wife Judy has a pair of High Fives, and I have the Parlor Brook Trout design issued to support the American Museum of Fly Fishing.