User:Lawrence m chadwick

In it's nineteenth year as a charity ski event, the Oregon Cancer Ski Out has been successfull because it has such a different format!

The result was an innovative ski race with a team-based format that rewarded consistency, not speed, making it possible for skiers and snowboarders of all abilities to participate.

March 2007 marks the Ski Out's 19th anniversary. Its success is largely due to the strong support of team participants and corporate sponsors who return year after year to experience the fun, camaraderie and opportunity to give that the Ski Out provides.

The No Race, Race doesn’t make a lot of sense unless you understand that it is really more of a crap shoot than being the first one down the hill. The hill being a fairly steep course at Mt. Hood Meadows, known as “Yellow”, and “the first one” isn’t “one”, but a five person team. For the last eighteen years, five people with varying grades of skiing ability have attempted to form one body that could ski the course in the same amount of time on the second day of the event, as they did on the first. The “crap shoot” part comes mainly the elements, the weather conditions change considerably from one day to the next, that you ski two courses, and that you reverse skiing order from the first day to the second. OH! Did I mention that here is a HUGE party with lots of good CARBS, libations, dancing and a casino?

One other point, none of this is about racing, it is about helping people that you care about….that is how Larry Chadwick, who doesn’t ski, started the Oregon Cancer Ski Out which up to this point has raised almost $500,000. Angered by the horrific pain and the elongated suffering of family and friends, he contacted some of his closer friends seeking advice and help. Larry Guisti had started the Al C. Guisti Memorial Golf Tournament several years before, agreed that the community had too many golf fund raisers. They turned to Jeff Miller and Steve Brott, at Meadows to perfect the non-race, race format. Chuck Hinman, at the Hood River Inn, joined the group with a premium site for the Headquarters of the events, and a place for participants to stay without the worry of folks having a good-time and driving. Don Graham, another old friend, brought the support of Northwest Natural, with food the feed the first year’s ninety skiers. After year one was successful, Chadwick felt he had an event he believed in enough to seek out major sponsors like Norm Daniels at GI Joes, who has remained faithful the last seventeen years. Later, other community leaders, Mike Reser - Reser Fine Foods, Chris Gunderson - Oregon Screen Impressions, Janet Balzer - Banner Bank, Tom and David Moore - Equity Advantage, and Kruse Way Lake Oswego Rotary became long-term supporters. Daniels points out that the Ski Out runs a true volunteer organization “with ten percent or less for administration; and I know that a 100% of our sponsorship is going to the charities badly in need of the money”. Chadwick says, “It’s all about accountability, and Portland is just a “BIG”, little town, besides it is just simply the way things must be done.”

Getting the money raised is only half of the equation for the Board of this not-for-profit (501(c) 3) organization. They are just as concerned with who they give the funds to. The first two years the Ski Out supported a new Cancer research group, the doctors were very open with how they were using the money; came the third year and the group would not answer any questions, after the third try, the money supply was shut off. Within weeks Chadwick encountered The Willamette Falls Hospice program that serves a thirty mile area of Portland Metro. Hospice services center on the family and friends of the dying, and insuring that the patient is cared for in a way that will allow them to pass on peacefully. The program’s Director, Barb McEhearn says “if there is such a thing as the right to live with dignity, then certainly there is a right to die with dignity”. This program provides services to anyone in need without concern for their ability to pay, Chadwick pointed out, and that is not true with all Hospice services in the area. Two years ago this program started a service for “Children in Grief”, one of the first in the country. “Children no longer have to face the loss of a family member, or a close friend, without being given a place to go to with trained people who care. The Ski Out gave us over half of the $20,000 we needed to get started.”

With an attitude that a little money can go a long way, OCSO, has assisted the Oregon Cancer Institute, at the Oregon Health Sciences University with $225.000 0.                                                                                                                                                                 recruiting Druker and nicholls