Opening Day 2021 755


Mountain Recreation’s youth scholarship program is designed to supply equitable entry to its packages, actions, camps and memberships to youth in Eagle County.
Mountain Recreation/Courtesy Picture

Mountain Recreation’s youth scholarship program every year opens the door to a whole lot of households to permit children to entry packages, amenities, camps and actions.

In 2023, it’s increasing the entry due to new eligibility necessities and an inflow of money from the Mountain Recreation Basis’s end-of-year giving marketing campaign.

The district’s youth scholarship program was designed to supply equitable entry to its packages for all children in Eagle County.



“It’s essential and important as a result of we actually imagine that everybody deserves to be blissful and wholesome and this scholarship permits everybody to have these alternatives, no matter their household’s means to pay,” stated Lizzy Owens, the district’s neighborhood engagement supervisor.

“You’ve obtained children who might actually need to play baseball or play hockey and their households can’t afford it. Due to the scholarship, they’re able to have the identical alternatives that their pals do. And to us, that’s actually essential that we’re capable of actually degree the taking part in area,” Owens added.

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Extra funds, extra households

For the previous three years, this system has been supported, and the district’s personal funds bolstered, by a grant from the Colorado Well being Basis. This grant was provided to the district to assist these impacted by COVID-19 however ended final yr.

Even with these supplemental funds, which helped the district present scholarships to “a number of hundred” households, Owens added that the district will get much more requests that it’s unable to fill.

It’s for these causes that the Mountain Recreation Basis determined to make elevating cash for the youth scholarship one in all its priorities.



The inspiration is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit group that launched in 2020 to allow the district to just accept donations to help in capital enhancements, scholarship funds and the endowment of different assets. The concept is that “the cash we’re capable of increase for the muse means we’re saving taxpayers cash,” Owens stated.

In December, the muse launched an end-of-year giving marketing campaign to boost funds to extend the variety of households it may assist with scholarships. In whole, it raised $19,950, which Owens stated is “greater than twice what (the district was) capable of allocate.”

In whole, with these donations, the district will be capable of fund simply over $36,000 in youth scholarships this yr. Nevertheless, Owens added that this quantity is “topic to extend” primarily based on the muse’s ongoing fundraising efforts.

Every eligible baby in a household can obtain as much as a $210 scholarship that’s added to their account and can be utilized to enroll in Mountain Recreation packages, golf equipment, sports activities, memberships and actions. Every household can obtain as much as $840 in scholarships per yr. Purposes are accepted on a rolling deadline all year long.

New eligibility

Along with having extra funds to allocate to households, the district additionally modified eligibility necessities in order that extra households can entry these funds. Beforehand, households that certified for the federal Free and Diminished Lunch Program certified for this system. Nevertheless, now the district is utilizing the “self-sufficiency customary” to broaden the variety of households that can qualify.

“We’re capable of assist lots of people who’re inside that donut gap of assist, the place they make an excessive amount of cash to qualify for lots of social companies, however they don’t make sufficient to have the ability to assist their children play on the identical staff as their children, or go to a summer season camp, and even go to a camp that we provide through the college yr when the college is closed and dealing dad and mom want that,” Owens stated. “We’re excited concerning the potential for what number of extra folks we’ll be capable of assist.”

Owens stated the district has already seen the influence of those adjustments within the variety of households reaching out to use for the scholarships.

Extra work to be executed

Mike McCormack, president of the Mountain Recreation Basis board of administrators, stated that with the ability to assist extra households this yr is “rewarding.” Nevertheless, he described it as a “grain of sand in a windstorm,” in that it “looks like nowhere close to sufficient.”

“Housing is difficult, employment is difficult, insurance coverage is difficult, baby care is difficult — these are issues which are systemic they usually’re not distinctive to mountain communities, however they actually bind us all collectively,” McCormack stated. “So, I feel there’s lots of work to do and we will and will do extra of this. And the neighborhood has been very gracious and good to us, and we’re actually lucky for that.”

Nonetheless, the scholarship is an instance of a quantifiable motion that has led to quick good points in the neighborhood, he stated.

“We reside in a valley that from lots of views is various: culturally, generationally, economically. And this can be a symbiotic relationship; all of the elements are needed,” McCormack stated. “There are individuals who don’t have as many benefits as others in the neighborhood, so that is a method that we will improve the standard of life by ensuring issues attainable.”

On the finish of the day, this youth scholarship program, “makes life higher for folks right here, the place it’s already fairly onerous for folks to eke out a residing and existence,” he added.

To study extra about, or to use for, the Mountain Recreation Youth Scholarship, go to MountainRec.org.





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