Wintergreen Adaptive Sports provides outdoor sports and recreational opportunities for persons with disabilities, of all ages and with all types of disabilities.
“There’s that point of time... you’re trying to figure, ‘What is my life going to be like?’ You get out there, you’re doing something new and you attack it.”
“The key for successful adaptive programs is how you use the equipment and how you tailor your instruction to help your students achieve success. Our students, who are children and adults with all manner of disabilities, find they can participate and learn. Many become more independent. Our program gives them more confidence. They are reminded–as we all need to be–that there’s a big exciting world out there with a lot of things to try and do.
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At a Glance
Wintergreen Adaptive Sports focuses on safety, fun, and learning. It is an independent 501c3 non-profit based at Wintergreen Resort in Nelson County, Virginia. WAS is a Chapter of Disabled Sports USA and a Paralympic sports club.
On the slopes WAS offers lessons in two-track skiing, three-track skiing, four-track skiing, mono-skiing, bi-skiing, and snowboarding.
Over 3,000 students with disabilities have received adaptive instruction in outdoor sports through WAS.
Over a hundred volunteer instructors participate in both winter and summer programs each year as junior and senior level instructors.
In the summer, people of all ages with a wide array of disabilities have enjoyed paddling canoes and kayaks with WAS's instructional teams.
WAS celebrated its 19th Annual Wounded Warriors Weekend in 2023, offering Wounded Warrior athletes, and their family members and caregivers, an exciting weekend of snow sports instruction, rest and relaxation, and camaraderie.
The Wounded Warrior Golf Tournament and clinic, started in 2009, is a widely anticipated mid-summer event.
The WAS slope-side hut, constructed in 2000 and expanded in 2005, houses the entire adaptive snow sports program. A new addition will be open for use in the 2023-24 season.
The W.A.S. PT& Ski program is a unique offering that combines physical therapy and adaptive snow sports
Take a lesson, volunteer–GET INVOLVED–in Wintergreen Adaptive Sports HERE.
