Welcome!

Welcome to the new Friends of St. Olaf Skiing blog! My name is Kayla Johnson and I am a senior captain on the team this year. Skiing has been a very important part of my time at Olaf, as it was for many of you. Many of my best friends are on the team, and the time we spend together on the hill, in the vans, and in some of the most interesting towns around the country are many of the best memories I'll keep from Olaf. I've started this blog, along with help from the team, in the hopes that you (alum, fans, parents, friends...) will be able to stay more connected to the team.

The team keeps growing in size, which is awesome! St. Olaf has had an incredible, high-performing ski team for as long as we can remember, and more and more skiers are drawn to it year after year. Consequently, we need to be a lot stricter on our budgeting. We want to be a team that anyone can be apart of, regardless of ability, because we know that it is an important community in which much can be learned and experienced. That said, we know we need to find a way to stabilize our budget so we can allow as many people as possible to compete at their highest potential level.

I started thinking about fundraising possibilities this summer after being urged by head coach Kevin Cook to come up with some ideas for the team. I was frustrated because fundraising is difficult and ineffective for several reasons. One, when people live all over the world during the summer (yes, we have a foreigner on the team!), and are involved in numerous extra things during the fall, getting people together is close to impossible. Two, who wants to buy cookie dough anymore? We can't go door to door like girl scouts selling things that people have already bought from their grade-school aged kids. And finally, its hard to get people excited about ski racing when its 80 degrees in August. There's no good time to get this done. But the problem is, we still need funding in order for this team to compete at our highest potential level.

I was doing all of this frustrated thinking while working at an internship at Thrivent Financial for Lutherans. As a Social Entrepreneurial intern, I was involved in several pilot projects from ideation through implementation. The two other interns Kate Horvat (also a senior at St. Olaf) and Tallis Boyd (a senior at the University of Minnesota) and I started pooling our ideas, and created a plan for a system for more efficient fundraising. We created a plan that we hope will create a more unified and passionate community of skiers and fans, parents and coaches, alum and students. One that can support each other, and help the legacy of St. Olaf Alpine Skiing live on...

To create this stronger more connected and supportive community, we're starting with a blog. The Friends of St. Olaf Skiing blog is a place for the St. Olaf Alpine Ski team community to be rejoined and reunited with you all. This blog will provide you with updates from the team, pictures of racers hanging out in the ski vans and winning races on the hill, insight into what it's like to be a freshmen in this community, and more. We'll have a calendar of events so you can keep track of where we go and how we do, and maybe even come out to cheer us on! You can post messages yourself and get back into touch with your old team. We'd love to hear what stories you have about that one race way back when...

So, email the link to your old teammates, post want-ads for your old coaches to join, and give the current team members some real-world, practical advice! Welcome back to the St. Olaf Alpine Skiing community!