Snowboarding for children in Kenya
BRECKENRIDGE, Colo. -- Most snowboarders have an iPod inside their parka as they fly above the halfpipe, letting the music carry them across the ice and snow and into another world.
Hannah Teter takes the idea of "another world" to a different level. Right next to her iPod, she also carries a picture she took of schoolchildren in Africa, the ones she wants to help through her snowboarding.
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Yet there is a surprising dearth of charitable work mentioned on their Web sites. That's one thing Teter would like to change about her sport -- she's also trying to get a team together to market her Specialized Goodness wristbands and shirts, made from organic products -- and she's putting her money where her mouth is.
She is scheduled to compete in about 10 events this season (she finished fourth and out of the money at an event in Breckenridge in December) and will donate all her prize money to her charities.
A noble gesture that's practically unheard of in any sport these days, even by those who like to say "it's not about the money." Teter is realistic on this subject, too. She says she can afford to do it thanks to endorsement contracts that reach the deep six figures.
"I've been blessed to have enough to buy organic and have a house in Tahoe. I know I'm going to be able to eat," Teter said. "This way, I can work it so that anything extra, I can give to charity."
Over the summer, Teter made her first trip to Kenya to see where the money was going.
In a town of 56,000 called Kirindon, she toured a number of schools, most with newly dug wells to provide fresh drinking water. They were building an addition to one school. And a boarding school at another place for runaway girls, some of whom are bartered and subjected to early marriages.