Girls Moving Mountains Fund Testimony
Girls Moving Mountains: What Your Donation Really Makes Possible
This year, we’ve asked our community to donate to the Girls Moving Mountains Fund. A fund that helps young girls in need attend our camps. The best way to show what a donation can do for these girls isn’t to tell you, it’s to let the girls tell you themselves. We’ve asked the girls who attended camp through the Girls Moving Mountains Fund to share what it meant to them and their experience.
“It was the best week of my summer”
An all-around skier who usually trains with an all-boys group in the winter, wrote about what it meant to spend a week surrounded by girls who loved the sport just like she did:
“I love skiing with all girls because my ski group in the winter is all boys. It was cool to be around girls that were like me.”
She trained gates in the summer for the first time, skied on an active volcano, and went white-water rafting on the Deschutes. But it wasn’t just the adventure that stuck with her. It was the learning:
“I really enjoyed learning about slalom. Learning here impacted the way I thought about crossblocking. I thought you were supposed to try to ram into the gates, but I should hit past the gate.”
That’s the kind of technical breakthrough that can shape a skier’s whole season, the kind of coaching moment that might never have happened without GMMF making the trip possible in the first place. As her mom put it: “Ski racing is so empowering for her, and she loves it so much. I am so grateful to the donors who made her dream come true.”
“I can do hard things”
This girl was nervous before camp started, nervous enough that she couldn’t sleep the night before. She flew to Portland by herself, met a group of strangers at the airport, and spent a week without her phone. Looking back, she wrote:
“I also learned that I can be independent and do hard things… I’ve always been told that I can do hard things, but now I feel like I’ve actually proven to myself that I can.”
On the hill, she credited camp with real, tangible progress, new coaches who explained things in ways that made old lessons finally click, video review that showed her exactly where to improve, and a renewed motivation heading into dryland:
“The coaches at camp explained some of the same things I have been working on in different ways that helped things click. They also noticed new things in my skiing that I should focus on.”
But what she came back to again and again was the community she found:
“Girls from all over the country, who were all different in a lot of ways, could come together and become such good friends because we all love skiing.”
She didn’t take this opportunity lightly. Coming from a family of four siblings, she wrote:
“Getting this scholarship was a really big deal for me and my family. I’m so grateful that I got the chance to go to Mt. Hood and be part of Keely’s Camp. I grew so much as both a skier and a person, and I can’t wait to carry everything I learned into this ski season and the rest of my life.”
Why This Matters
These aren’t just nice notes, they’re proof of what a single donation can set in motion. A week at camp that becomes a technical breakthrough. A girl who finally skis alongside others who get it. A girl who proves to herself, alone at an airport gate, that she can handle whatever comes next.
If you’ve donated to the Girls Moving Mountains Fund, thank you! This is what your generosity made possible.
These testimonies show why the fund exists: to make sure that no girl misses out on this experience simply because of what it costs.
Donate to the Girls Moving Mountains Fund or apply for a scholarship today, because every girl deserves the chance to move mountains!
