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The Adaptive Sports Foundation

Our Story

Since 1984, the Adaptive Sports Foundation has been providing sports and recreation opportunities to thousands of children and adults with both cognitive and physical disabilities. Considered one of the top adaptive sports programs in the country, the ASF has been on the cutting edge of adaptive sports programming and has provided what participants have often described as “life changing experiences.”

The Adaptive Sports Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

The History of the Adaptive Sports Foundation

 

1981 Bill Haltermann (an amputee three-track skier) founded a disabled ski program at Windham Mountain called the Ski Windham Adaptive Program (SWAP). 

1981-1984 SWAP operated as an all-volunteer organization on weekends. The adaptive equipment was stored in the mountain’s old locker room and volunteers developed a student reservation system and lesson histories that are still used in an updated form by the ASF today. 

1984 The Professional Ski Instructor of America – Eastern Division established an Education Foundation Research Center at Ski Windham managed by Gwen Allard who was the Executive Director of EPSIA-EF to develop teaching progressions and certification for adaptive ski teaching.  This was the official start of the Disabled Ski Program at Ski Windham (which later became the Adaptive Sports Foundation)

1990 The Disabled Ski Program at Ski Windham moved from their storage shed into an office in the new base lodge at Ski Windham.  In seven short years the program had grown to include three seasonal staff members and 60 volunteers who gave approximately 1,500 lessons each ski season.  

1990 Bill Haltermann won a gold medal at the U.S. National Disabled Championships at Stratten Mountain.

1996 The Disabled Ski Program at Ski Windham offered their first adaptive snowboard lessons.

2000 The Disabled Ski Program at Ski Windham was incorporated as the Adaptive Sports Foundation (ASF) and was no longer under the governance of the Professional Ski Instructors of America – Eastern Division. The ASF obtained 501(c)(3) non profit status under the Adaptive Sports Foundation name.

2001 ASF Founder and Executive Director Gwen Allard was inducted into the National Disabled Ski Hall of Fame.

2005 The ASF’s Warriors in Motion program established to serve wounded United States servicemen and women.

2005 The Gwen Allard Adaptive Sports Center opened.

2010 Caitlin Sarubbi, member of the ASF Ski Team, was named to the United States Paralympic Team and competed in the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games in Vancouver, Canada.

2014 The ASF celebrates 30 years of empowering lives through adaptive sports.

2014 Staci Mannella, member of the ASF Ski Team, was named to the United States Paralympic Team and competed in the 2014 Paralympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia.

2018  Staci Mannella, member of the ASF Ski Team, was named to the United States Paralympic Team and competed in the 2018 Paralympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea. 

2019 The ASF celebrates 35 years of empowering lives through adaptive sports.

2020-2022 The ASF operates outdoors for two seasons and continues to provide adaptive lessons during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

2021 The ASF begins its summer Adaptive Skateboard Camps.

2022 ASF Founder and Executive Director Gwen Allard was inducted into the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame.

2022 The ASF teams up with Big SNOW American Dream, an indoor ski resort in East Rutherford, N.J., to provide adaptive ski and snowboard lessons during the summer months.

2024 The ASF celebrates 40 years of empowering lives through adaptive sports.

 

NOTE: Prior to the 1983-1984 winter season and the official establishment of what we know today as the Adaptive Sports Foundation, adaptive athlete Bill Haltermann, Jr. began an adaptive program for physically disabled individuals at Ski Windham for the 1981-1982 season. Bill volunteered with Karen Frank, Dee Dee Sheridan, Anita Buyers, Joan Morales, Kathy Koegel, Janice Loftus, Barbara Tait, Leila Brown, Walter and Rosemary Lipman, and Kathy and Bob Kelly, among others, to conduct adaptive ski lessons on weekends.  This group of individuals along with Dan Frank, general manager of Ski Windham and Gwen Allard, Executive Director of EPSIA-EF, planted the seeds to establish the Disabled Ski Program at Ski Windham in 1983-84 which would become the Adaptive Sports Foundation as we know it today servicing individuals with physical and or cognitive disabilities. 
 
(The above information is courtesy of Bill Haltermann, Jr.)