Whistler Adaptive Sports Program

Please help us build the Jeff Harbers Adaptive Sports Centre. The new building will be used by up to 180 volunteers across all of our programs and 600 (and growing every day!) participants. The Whistler Adaptive Sports Program has worked with our designers and contractors to build a facility that meets the American Disability Act for accessibility standards. Our goal is to have the most universally usable facility possible.

The Whistler Adaptive Sports Program was founded in 1999 to provide sport and recreational experiences in the Whistler Area, and at that time concentrated on Ski and Snowboard Lessons. As the organization grew, so did our scope and mandate. A short twelve years later, programs covering sixteen different sports and four season operations now exist. The mission of the Whistler Adaptive Sports Program is to provide year-around, recreational programs for people of all ages with disabilities. We are a centre for learning and sports excellence that has a local, regional, national and international clientele. We encourage independence, self-confidence and self-motivation for all of our athletes and participants through outdoor recreation.

The Whistler Adaptive Sports Program currently operates our Whistler Adaptive Ski and Snowboard Program at Olympic Station at Whistler Blackcomb. The current facility was generously donated by the Rotary Club of Whistler, and has served our organization well since 2000. At the time of the building donation, we were providing 150-200 lessons per year. In fiscal year 2011 we provided approximately 1700 lessons in alpine skiing, snowboarding, alpine ski racing, cross-country skiing, hiking, trail riders, hand cycling, rowing, gymnastics, swimming, triathlon, running, biking, canoeing and kayaking. It has served many purposes for the Whistler Adaptive Sports Program: equipment storage; “Welcome Centre” for program participants; equipment maintenance room; and training facility. As our organization has grown to provide more than 20 lessons on a daily basis in that facility, with over 30 staff and volunteers on those days, we have significantly outgrown the initial equipment centre. If we are to continue at our present rate of growth of thirty percent per year for our alpine based programs, we anticipate serving 1365 lessons out of our Olympic Station facility by 2011-2012.

The Jeff Harbers’ Adaptive Sports Centre is a two story, stand-alone building at Olympic Station at Whistler Blackcomb. It will be an open, welcoming, accessible facility that would be used by the program participants in our skiing, snowboarding, hiking, future mountain biking, para-snowboard and alpine ski racing programs. The upper floor will be used for program services, while the lower floor would be used for additional storage and equipment maintenance. We have, wherever possible, used green building principles and the building would be finished in a manner that would allow it to blend into the current look and feel of the Whistler Blackcomb facilities at Olympic Station. The plans for the new facility will allow for many more years of significant growth by the Whistler Adaptive Sports Program.  

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