Several of FVSEF's goals are on their way to becoming reality, thanks to grant monies awarded by the Whitefish Community Foundation and the Marie Eccles Caine Foundation - Russell Family.

Lighting Improvements on Nice Day for After School Training

Whitefish Community Foundation - 2022 Community Grant $5,000

Marie Eccles Caine Foundation - Russell Family Grant 2023 $4,000

Whitefish Mountain Resort allows FVSEF to train on their property during the season through an annual agreement. FVSEF's main training hill is Nice Day, a run on the lower half of Chair 2 alongside the Heritage T-bar. Our athletes train on weekends and holidays starting in December, and on weekdays after school from January through March. After school training on Nice Day utilizes the Heritage T-bar between 4-6pm and requires lighting the hill during the dark winter months. Current lighting is minimal with only two poles with light fixtures on the skier's left side of the hill and two sets of light fixtures on the T-bar line to skier's right of the hill. There are large patches of the training hill with very poor visibility after about 4:30pm, making it difficult for our kids to get the most out of their training time. The lighting improvement project will add eight new light fixtures, four along each side of Nice Day to greatly improve visibility, safety, and the quality of training for our program participants. This will in turn help our athletes perform better in races and help us fulfill our mission to provide top quality educational and competitive ski programs for valley-wide youth. In addition to benefiting our foundation's valley-wide members, other residents of the Flathead Valley will benefit from the project since Nice Day is open to the public for night skiing on Friday and Saturday nights when FVSEF is not using it for training. Thank you also to Whitefish Mountain Resort for contributing two lighting poles and the cost of constructing the project.

Purchase Wireless Timing System

Whitefish Community Foundation - 2023 Community Grant $6,000

Marie Eccles Caine Foundation - Russell Family Grant 2023 $6,000

The goal is to develop FVSEF's ability to host high-level ski races at Whitefish Mountain Resort (WMR). In the near term, we want to host two weekends of racing in one season, and in the long term we want to host higher level international race series such as the Doug Smith Memorial race (last held in Whitefish in 2008), a NOR-AM, or US National Championship. Hosting these types of high-profile races at WMR draws local, regional, and national attention to the sport and our organization, helping us grow our programs and fulfill our mission of promoting excellence through educational and competitive programs in skiing and ski racing
FVSEF currently hosts one US Ski and Snowboard (USSA) race weekend annually at WMR. A key component of hosting a USSA race is use of an approved timing system. FVSEF relies on an aging and frequently damaged timing system. WMR Events Department staff time is required to set up, test, and repair the timing system, although FVSEF provides USSA-certified volunteers timers to operate the system during races. Because we depend on involvement from Events Department staff who have a full events calendar through the winter already, we are limited to hosting just one weekend of races per year. With the purchase of a new timing system, we hope to expand our race hosting capacity!

In 2022 FVSEF received two other grants to aid in the purchase of new safety netting (B-net) to protect our skiers when training on Nice Day and Heaven. Thank you to the Kelly Brush Foundation and Flathead Electric Co-op's Round-Up for Safety program!