DOINews: ONRRs Brian Delehanty Uses Snowboard to Teach At-risk Youth Courage, Self-esteem

ONRR's Brian Delehanty, back right, poses with a group of students from Adams City High School during a recent snowboard outing to Echo Mountain near Evergreen, Colo. Delehanty volunteers to help underprivileged youth through the Chill Foundation, a non-profit whose mission is to provide opportunities for at-risk youth to build self-esteem and life skills through “boardsports.” Photo by Charlie Gundlach, Chill Foundation.

Brian Delehanty is a financial management specialist at the Office of Natural Resources Revenue. He first began volunteering when he joined ONRR as an intern after earning his master's degree in business intelligence at the University of Denver. Photo by Patrick Etchart, ONRR.

DENVER — ONRR's Brian Delehanty first began skiing at 3 years old, and took up snowboarding at 9. Today, Delehanty is using his slope skills to mentor at-risk and underserved inner-city youth while teaching them essential skills to help them succeed in later life.


Delehanty, a financial management specialist at the Office of Natural Resources Revenue at the Denver Federal Center, volunteers to help underprivileged youth through the Chill Foundation, a non-profit whose mission is to provide opportunities for at-risk youth to build self-esteem and life skills through “boardsports.”


Each year, Chill takes from 75 to 100 youth from each of its sites in North America, Australia and Austria to nearby ski slopes, providing essentials such as lift tickets, lessons, transportation and gear. The organization uses snowboarding to motivate youth to accomplish things they never thought possible while teaching them important lessons in life.


Those lessons, Delehanty said, include patience, persistence, responsibility, courage, respect and pride, each highlighted as a theme in the six outings they take that span several weeks in January and February. “For most of these underprivileged youth,” he said, “this is their first time on the slopes. It's something new that they never get to do.”


The youth range in age from 8 to 9 years old up to high-school seniors. “Some pick it up fast,” Delehanty said, “while others may struggle.” Regardless, he said, “they learn valuable lessons related to the six themes that they can apply the rest of their lives.”


Many of these youth don't have any structure in their lives, he added. Some come from the inner city, some from foster care and group homes, some from the juvenile justice system, and others who may be struggling with drugs, violence or depression. Many of them have never left their cities.


Delehanty began volunteering when he joined ONRR as an intern after earning his master's degree in business intelligence at the University of Denver. “I wanted to do volunteering,” he said, “because I had a lot of opportunities when I was growing up.”


“It's definitely rewarding,” he said, “especially when you see it's actually helping them develop the tools they'll need to be successful. That never goes away.”


“And snowboarding,” Delehanty adds, “is a fun and healthy way to do something that builds confidence and self-esteem.”

By: Patrick Etchart, public affairs specialist, ONRR

March 19, 2012

Important Link:

Office of Natural Resources Revenue