Ski school gives city kids their first shot on the slopes
VERNON, N.J. — In the mountains of northwest New Jersey, a group of schoolchildren are doing something they do not have the opportunity to do back home in Newark: ski.
Schone Malliet created the National Winter Activity Center in Vernon to offer kids from New York City, Newark and the surrounding region what may be their first chance to learn the winter sport.
“This place is a sacred place. It’s built to allow kids to master the sport, to be able to introduce them to winter activities as a way to improve their life health and fitness,” said Malliet, who also hopes to increase diversity among winter sports athletes and fans by helping to remove geographic, social and economic barriers.
Growing up in the Bronx, Malliet said he was not exposed to skiing until he went for the first time with a fellow Marine in Utah. He co-founded the National Winter Sports Education Foundation in 2010 to teach kids and then rehabilitated an old ski lodge and reopened it as the training complex in the winter of 2014.