Arn Menconi's Page

We hit 40 mountains this month and serving over 4000 youth and 20,000 student days. We are planning a National Youth Summit, Youth Development Conference and multi-charity exhibit area at the Snowsports Industry Association trade show from Thursday, January 28th through Sunday the 31st at the Denver Convention Center.

SOS, on behalf of the snowsport industries, is producing The National Youth Summit on Saturday morning in front of the Convention center from 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. If you are att… Continue

After spending the last week in Washington D.C. at the Up2Us (www.up2us.org) conference on sports based youth development with other Executive Directors from around the country, it is evident that we are vanguards evolving into professionals in youth development. This area is relatively young and comes with it's challenges.

At SOS we have attempted to expand capacity and impact of our programs through year round and multi year programs. This makes our mission… Continue

For the past two months our staff has been revising the SOS curriculum. Everyone has played an important role in leaving their imprints. With the internet, it is easy to research training and educational materials so that we can deliver best practices. I wanted to charge ourselves to integrate youth development, education and mental health more consciously in our programming goals. With the advent of year round and multi-year programming we needed to enhance the mentors and direct service provid… Continue

SOS attends many of the manufactures shows to find resources for our community of do gooders. Outdoor sports by individuals is only a $30 Billion dollar industry but loved by us all. How every our passion for these sports need to be opened to the next generation of youth who are a much more diverse population. Remember about how much cycling, snowboarding and other passions of you have changed your life and hopefully give back to the next generation.

I have been to two seminars on "making ends meet in a tough economy" for non-profits. SOS is blessed to have a very passionate staff and an AmeriCorp Vista grant. AmeriCorp is like the Peace Corp but staff work in the U.S. rather than aboard. For the past 3 years we have had 3-4 per year. Starting in July we will have a total of 9! They are barely paid and work as hard as full time staff. They keep me on my toes and excited about our programs. Over the next few months, I hope you get to meet the… Continue