Winter4Kids

Founded in 2014, Winter4Kids recently received the NJBIZ Non-profit Business of the Year Award (under 100 Employees). Winter4Kids is focused on providing children with life skills and opportunities for a healthy lifestyle through access to winter activities that they might not otherwise experience like alpine skiing, snowboarding, Nordic skiing, and biathlon.

By repurposing and reengineering the former Hidden Valley ski area in Vernon, New Jersey into the National Winter Activity Center, Winter4Kids has been able to dedicate a campus solely for children and use its facilities, programs, and environment to change and save lives of youth in New Jersey. The Winter4Kids winter sports instructional program provides access and competency while its programs build on that with life skills, healthy meals, and an environment to make sure that every child has positive alternatives to the effects of trauma.

Winter4Kids programs are multiple session and multiple year programs. The typical participant engagement is a minimum of three years in partnership with an advocate organization, usually a school or other youth development agency. Since its founding, Winter4Kids has gone from serving 180 children in its first year to now serving 3,000 children annually. It has served a total of 14,901 children and expects to serve over 10,000 each year by 2027.

Looking to the future, one key objective of Winter4Kids is to serve more kids so that they have more positive choices to develop. A new lodge addition, slated to come online in 2024, will increase capacity and add experiential summer activities consistent with Winter4Kids values and will extend its impact into times when the school environment is not available. It has identified key objectives for future growth and development around facility capacity, operational costs, and programs and anticipates embarking on a capital campaign to support its vision.