At the top of Mountain Creek, a ski resort in New Jersey, teenagers from New York City, who have never snowboarded before, anxiously await their first trip down the slopes.
Wrapped in warm, bulky gear, the infectious energy of teens takes over the learning area as they practice, fall, and get back up in preparation for a potentially life-changing first ride.
Raquel Hamblin, 19, had a long list of fears before climbing a hill for the first time. He was afraid of falling, of not being good enough, of not having friends.
Even though she grew up in a West Indian family, she wasn't sure she would be able to adapt to the snow and cold.
Hood to Woods, an organization that helps remove barriers to access the outdoors for children in underserved communities, changed her perspective.
“[My friends] Look at me funny because I'm snowboarding,'' she said in an interview with ABC News. A former Hood to Woods participant herself, she is now involved in teaching the next generation of snowboarders.
She continued, “Snowboarding is important to me because it's like a top level, because it relieves stress and allows me to have fun. And now I can teach other kids how to enjoy snowboarding.'' I am.”
For the Hood-to-Woods kids, the excitement of a new skill is palpable as they don their bulky winter clothes and duck-walk into the elevator to the top of the hill. However, for sports such as skiing, snowboarding, and ice climbing, the desire to learn is not enough.
The world of outdoor recreation is seemingly inaccessible to athletes of color. Taking up a new sport requires overcoming one barrier after another, including culture, location, transportation, cost, equipment, and acquired skills.
Hoods to Woods co-founders Omar Diaz and Brian Pawpaw told ABC News that these sports can be expensive to invest in if you don't have the experience or skill set. Told. And if the cost of transportation, equipment, and lessons aren't factors, the lack of a support system or community can be a deterrent to new participants.
At Pawpaw, we understand the hesitations faced by novice snowboarders. When he was young, his friends invited him to try snowboarding, but he didn't think snowboarding was a sport for a Brooklyn boy like himself.
“There was some apprehension at first. I was like, 'No, you know I'm from the project.' This is not the kind of work we do,” Pawpaw said. During the first lesson, he fell down many times, but he got back up again and again.
“I said, 'Oh, I have to go back. I have to keep trying this. Don't give up, don't miss your chance.' And I've never looked back since. . ”
Snowsports Industries America found in its 2022-2023 study that winter sports participation is becoming more diverse over time.
Black participants increased from 9.5% of total participants in 2022 to 11.2% in 2023. Hispanic participants also increased from 14.9% to 15.2%.
This is likely driven by a notable surge in young athletes. More than half of the Black and Hispanic participants are young adults ranging from 18 years old to 34 years old.
This new generation of athletes increasingly has role models of color to model themselves after, like X Games gold medalist Zeb Powell.
break the ice
When Powell first tried snowboarding, he hated it.
His family sent him to snowboarding classes by himself on family vacations as a child, but the teacher was “mean” and taught him to ride in a stance he was not accustomed to.
His disdain for the sport caused him to miss his best friend's birthday party and snowboarding invitations. At that moment, he faced a mental obstacle.
Powell later became the first black snowboarder in X Games history to win a gold medal at the age of 20 in 2020. He said he never thought about his skin color while snowboarding, and he never saw athletes who looked like him snowboarding. He was playing sports that day before he made history.
“People say, 'I didn't even know black people snowboarded,' or 'You were the first black person I ever saw snowboarding,' or 'You're so inspiring and make me want to do this. I started getting a lot of responses like, 'Oh no,''' he said in an interview with ABC News.
He continued, “Once that happened, I thought, oh, this is a big deal. And I have to start working on it.”
There, he helped create Culture Shifters, an annual event that brings together a diverse group of athletes, musicians, artists, organizers, and activists to have tough conversations to build a more inclusive snowboarding community. did.
We also partner with Hoods to Woods to develop the next generation of snowboarders.
“This is crazy energy I've never seen on the mountain,” Powell said. “We are a community. And we can lean on each other and talk about how we can grow the sport in our own way and express ourselves in our own way.”
In its latest research, Snowsports Industries America found that younger generations are changing the demographics of winter sports. However, this leaves many older adults with untapped potential to explore the outdoors.
Introducing Brown Girl Outdoor World (BGOW). This is a sports community for Black, Indigenous, and other people of color to explore nature in a supportive environment.
Building a community
Demisha Dennis is based in Toronto, Canada and grew up in Jamaica. For her, the outdoors was not a place for her. She said, “It was just where we live, where we exist and how we move.”
“When you wake up, you're given breakfast and told to go outside and be back before the sun goes down,” Dennis said. “He was one of the things that drew me to the outdoors: climbing trees, getting lost in the bushes, spending time outside with my grandma, and learning about bird watching.”
It wasn't until she lived in Canada and the United States that racial disparities became apparent to her.
“What I thought of as the outdoors was not what I had in mind,” Dennis said. “I wanted to build my own house here. How can I build a house when I don't even know where it is? How can I build a house when I have no connection to the house? ?”
To change this, she created what she needed and what others needed to enter the world of outdoor recreational activities. She created her BGOW where adults can explore, learn, and see themselves outdoors.
“As we get older, joy seems to be harder to find,” Dennis says. “We are now being told to ‘stop playing and start working.’ There is a lot of fear trapped in the way we approach play as adults, so we have to start somewhere. It won’t.”
Dennis first learned to snowboard with the Culture Shifters, along with Powell and others.
“I came home bruised and bruised by the wind. It was one of the happiest bruises of my life, because I tried something really, really new.”
Community building is at the heart of these expressive activities.
“It's all about the concept of community,” Diaz said. “Sometimes when you come in through the hood, you have outsider syndrome and think, well, you don't belong in a certain environment. You know, Mt. He taught me that.” ”
ABC News' Nico Rothenberg contributed to this report.
Demisha Dennis is based in Toronto, Canada and grew up in Jamaica. For her, the outdoors was not a place for her. She said, “It was just where we live, where we exist and how we move.”
“When you wake up, you're given breakfast and told to go outside and come back before the sun goes down,” Dennis said. “He was one of the things that drew me to the outdoors: climbing trees, getting lost in the bushes, spending time outside with my grandma, and learning about bird watching.”
It wasn't until she lived in Canada and the United States that racial disparities became apparent to her.
“What I thought of as the outdoors wasn't the same as the image I had,” Dennis said. “I wanted to build my own house here. How can I build a house when I don't even know where it is? How can I build a house when I have no connection to the house?'' Do you want it?”
To change this, she created what she needed and what others needed to enter the world of outdoor recreational activities. She created her BGOW where adults can explore, learn, and see themselves outdoors.
“As we get older, joy seems to be harder to find,” Dennis says. “We've been told to stop playing and start working. There's a lot of fear trapped in the way we approach play as adults, so we have to start somewhere. It won’t.”
Dennis first learned to snowboard with the Culture Shifters, along with Powell and others.
“I came home bruised and bruised by the wind. It was one of the happiest bruises of my life, because I tried something really, really new.”
Community building is at the heart of these expressive activities.
“It's all about the concept of community,” Diaz said. “Sometimes when you come in through the hood, you have outsider syndrome and think, well, you don't belong in a certain environment. You know, Mt. He taught me that.” ”
ABC News' Nico Rothenberg contributed to this report.
