Challenge Accepted is a 501c3 nonprofit focused on empowering veterans with disabilities to challenge the ordinary through extreme sports and find their full potential in every aspect of life. Challenge Accepted seeks to fill a void that exists within the field of adaptive sports. There are many adaptive programs for beginner and intermediate level snowboarders but for veterans with disabilities, who have achieved or regained expert-level snowboarding skills, opportunities are minimal. ... Read More
Challenge Accepted is a 501c3 nonprofit focused on empowering veterans with disabilities to challenge the ordinary through extreme sports and find their full potential in every aspect of life. Challenge Accepted seeks to fill a void that exists within the field of adaptive sports. There are many adaptive programs for beginner and intermediate level snowboarders but for veterans with disabilities, who have achieved or regained expert-level snowboarding skills, opportunities are minimal. Challenge Accepted will fill this void by bringing veterans with disabilities into some of the greatest snow conditions that North America has to offer.
Challenge Accepted’s main programming focuses on heli-snowboarding (use of helicopters to access mountainous terrain for the purpose of snowboarding). For many veterans with disabilities, their last experience in a helicopter was being dropped into a hot zone or medevaced out of one. As an organization, our goal is to replace those memories with an extraordinary, extreme, and positive experience. The primary objectives of the program are to use travel and small group cohesion to create opportunities for civilian reintegration, comradery, wellness, and connections that the veterans can take back home with them. There is a health and wellness requirement prior for all participants prior to the trip. Building and maintaining a healthy lifestyle focused on the whole-health of mind and body prior to traveling to the program will empower each veteran to achieve their physical and mental best during the snowboarding experience. As an organization, we recognize the importance and value of volunteerism within the community - it is one of our core requirements for selection of veteran participants. Altruism and leading by example will help empower our veteran participants to continue to serve other veterans and the community.
When Vietnam veterans returned home from war, they were not greeted with any kind of carpet, let alone, a red carpet. As an organization, Challenge Accepted plans to provide that red carpet and then some for every veteran we serve. Life is about moments, memories and kindness - so for every veteran who signed up to defend our freedoms and did not come home whole, they deserve opportunities to experience life to the fullest potential. Snowboarding in remote terrain, accessed by helicopters, is not an ordinary or a common experience that is affordable to many veterans, so Challenge Accepted seeks to make this possible.
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