the chill foundation was established by jake and donna carpenter from burton snowboards in one thousand nine hundred seven as a way to give back to the community the mission of chill is to provide opportunities for at risk and under served youth to build self esteem and life skills through board sports the history in one thousand nine hundred seven when jake and ana decided to start this organization it really was an opportunity for them to give back to the community that helped their business grow and the the idea of giving back to at risk youth this is something that they would not otherwise have the opportunity to participate in the program started in burlington vermont in one thousand nine hundred seven and today we have thirteen cities across north america that we serve including two in canada we also have international programs that we have a program in austria australia and japan the kids that we serve our kids that are growing up in neighborhoods that often are dangerous their kids who are living in poverty their kids who would not otherwise maybe see outside of the four blocks that they live and we're giving them an opportunity to get out of that environment and learn something new the piece about chill that is the most valuable is the fact that we are teaching these life skills through board sports we have a weekly theme that we will facilitate on the bus we use our buses as mobile classrooms and each week is a different theme we start with respect and then patience persistence responsibility courage and pride and each week they will participate in an activity around that theme and then we say use that skill that we just went over with you to learn how to snowboard or to learn how to surf to learn how to skate or stand up paddle board and then the next week we say how did you incorporate that into your everyday life we really want them to transfer these skills to their everyday life so they can get out of the environments that they're living in today we have six programs that are full time year round we are moving in the direction of having all of our programs be full time so that we can not only serve more kids in each of our cities but we serve kids more often it may be a snow program in the wintertime skate program in the summertime in a stand up outboard in the fall or maybe a surf program in the summertime so we're now providing opportunities for these kids to engage with chill year round and our goal is to have all of our sites are thirteen cities across north america providing full time programming  year round in the next probably three to five years the special opportunities that we provide these kids we will choose one kid from each of our sites to participate in burton's us open each year in vail colorado and when we talk about taking out them outside of their environment this truly takes them outside of their environment and really shows them opportunities beyond the four blocks that they live the other thing we are starting with chill is a mentor program called chill freestyle and that's a program that will also be providing them an opportunity to get to the mountain to learn new skills and to build a relationship with an adult so if you'd like to get involved with chill you can check us out at w w w dot chill dot org