What happens when Travis Rice, one of the greatest snowboarders of our time, mentors youth from inner city Los Angeles?
A beautiful combination of mentoring, inspiration, fun, and, of course, snowboarding.
On March 25, Travis Rice, essentially the Michael Jordan of snowboarding took time out of his busy schedule to mentor with Stoked, an action sports youth agency that empowers inner city kids through snowboarding, skateboarding, and surfing.
Stoked is about teaching life skills through the sports to youth from low income communities. Life skills such as creating a vision, goal setting, and overcoming obstacles are lessons that someone like Travis uses in his life daily.
These are some of the skills youth learn while snowboarding.
I met Travis last year at his hometown of Jackson Hole at a conference. Travis was looking to get involved with a socially minded charity.
Stoked fit right into his alley.
During that time, he had released the biggest snowboard movie of the year, The Art of Flight, worldwide as well as launched his Supernatural contest, in which he won.
So when he had a few days to spare at the end of the winter, I asked him to spend the last day of our snow season in Los Angeles snowboarding with our kids at Snow Summit in Big Bear, California. A true professional, he jumped right in and truly was a mentor to a bus full of kids from downtown Los Angeles.
Here's a video from the day: