Shred Love Celebrates 5 Years of Service


ShredLOve5yr

Join us in celebrating our fifth year of service, as we couldn’t have done it without you! I’m extremely proud of the progress we’ve made as a group and as individuals. Collectively we’ve worked together to expose inner city and at-risk youth to snowboarding, developed the leadership skills of all of our participants, and tackled some of the roughest terrain on our snowboards and mountain bikes. Yet individually, we’ve all faced some of our greatest fears and overcame many obstacles. I’ve had the pleasure to share in many of the triumphs of the group; seeing a newbie link turns at the end of a lesson, watching our older students become group leaders, and listening to the group’s stories on the bus ride home is a reward in itself.

I started Shred Love to give back to my community and yet my community has given so much more to me in return. I’ve learned a lot within the last 5 years about community, relationships, problem solving and myself. There were many times I wanted to quit because of funding and managing the business side of Shred Love, in addition to balancing my family, my day job; my life in general. Through each hurdle you, our supporters, created a way for Shred Love to not only continue, but to also grow.

May the next 5 years allow us to continue to grow and serve more deserving youth and create many more life long memories!

Cheers!

Liz

Sports Matter


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Shred Love is now taking part of Dick’s Sporting Goods’ Sports Matter Crowdfunding Initiative. Our goal is to raise a total of $7000 to fund our upcoming season’s transportation cost and to replace some of our gear. In order to receive the full donation of $7000, we need to fundraise $3500 on our own. To date, we still need to raise an additional $3075. Please join us in this initiative and make a donation on our Sports Matter page and spread the word! If we don’t raise $3075 by Friday, May 23 6pm EST, we won’t receive any of the funds raised. Its truly a matter of all or nothing matter. So please consider making a donation and spreading the word to help us keep our Learn to Ride snowboard program free to its participants.

As always, thank you for supporting us! It is with your continued support we are able to serve more deserving youth through snowboarding.

Regards,

Liz

Ride with Us


Shred Love 2014

 

 

Mother Nature has been really generous with the snow this year, so let’s hope she continues for our next outing on Sunday, March 2, 2014. In addition to snowboarding, we will be awarding all of our riders! So please, do you snow dance for one more coating of fresh powder and then I will personally join you all in the dance for spring. Pinky promise! 😉

Shred Love 2014 

Sunday, March 2, 2014 at Windham Mountain

Pickup/Drop-off Location: W33rd St & Broadway, Bayonne, NJ

Drop off – 6am

Return – 7pm

Students must bring lunch or buy lunch at the mountain. Text messages will be sent to all parents when we are an hour away from reaching Bayonne. Parents please be prompt! Also, all booster sheets can be returned then.

Thank you for being a part of Shred Love! It is with your continued dedication we are able to serve more deserving youth!

~ Liz

Learn to Ride 2014


Our 2014 program kicked off on Sunday, January 26th at Windham Mountain. January is also the official Learn to Ride month and with a group of 37 youth participants, we did just that! The group is a mix of returning students and newbies, all with varying riding skills. This year, we also had a volunteer that was new to snowboarding. Our volunteer Matt, usually enjoys skiing, but took on the challenge of not only learning to snowboard, but to also chaperone a group of beginners. In addition, volunteer Shirley was also a newbie to snowboarding. It was interesting to see how the volunteers and the students would switch roles in motivating each other.

After every outing, we ask the group what they have learned new or discovered about themselves. Answers typically vary, but most feel that their biggest challenge of the day was continuing to try to snowboard after falling. Some cited they needed a pep talk to continue, others felt determined to get it, but all agreed, giving up wasn’t an option. Determination at its finest!

Shred Love 2014


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Happy New Year everyone! We hope everyone has enjoyed the holidays and is now ready to get some riding in. Why? Because Shred Love’s 2014 Learn to Ride session kicks off this month! Our dates this year are Sundays: January 26th, February 2nd, and February 9th. Due to the Super Bowl being held in New Jersey this year (blah!), we have to schedule an alternative event. Some of the board members have suggested bowling or ice skating, however we would like to you hear from our riders and their parents/guardians, before we finalize our plans for 2/2/2014. What would you like to do? The event must be local and be completed by 4pm.

Our Learn to Ride program is the same as every year. Students do not need to know how to snowboard to register, but must commit to attending all of our dates. Shred Love is open to girls and boys, ages 8 – 18 years old. All participants must bring lunch or money to buy their lunch at Windham Mountain. A slice of pizza and juice is approximately $10.

Parents will receive a text message when we are approximately an hour away from our pickup/drop-off location. Parents, please be prompt will picking up students!

Our Learn to Ride program is free to our participants. We only ask that you consider making a donation to help cover the costs to run this program. Transportation costs alone for each participant is $112. Donations of prepackaged snacks, breakfast foods, juices, water, napkins, and monetary donations are greatly appreciated (and tax deductible!).

If you would like to volunteer for any of our outings, please send us an email at volunteer@shredlove.org/wordpress.

 

Shred Love’s 2014 Learn to Ride Program

Sundays: January 26 and February 9, 2014 at Windham Mountain

Pickup/Drop-off Location: W33rd St & Broadway, Bayonne, NJ

Drop off – 6am

Return – 7pm

All participants will receive snowboard pants, gloves, face masks, goggles, lift tickets, and rental equipment (snowboard and boots). All lessons are instructed by Windham Mountain’s instructors. Permission slips will be emailed on Wednesday, 1/22 and must be signed prior to student boarding the bus. Students must bring lunch or buy lunch at the mountain.

Click here to register now! Use session number 2206 and select Shred Love as your youth agency.

Please feel free to email me at eroyster@shredlove.org/wordpress with any questions and/or concerns you may have.

See you on the slopes!

Liz

Fitness magazine feature


Our founder, Elizabeth “Liz” Royster was recently featured in the May issue of Fitness Magazine. Fitness Magazine is women’s fitness magazine that focuses on health, beauty, skin care, and success stories to motivate readers to become strong in mind, body, and spirit. The best part of Fitness magazine is that it empowers women to embrace fitness as a lifestyle, not a size and become healthy, not skinny.

We would like to thank the writer Anna Davis for the opportunity, as well as photographer Amy Postle, Marianne of The Hidden Valley Club of Vernon, NJ for letting us have the photo shoot on their slopes, and all of the participants and their parents for coming out on that bitter cold morning.

Read the article in its entirety here: Pay Fitness Forward

 

Super Sunday


We all know February 6th was Super Bowl Sunday, but for us, it was just another Super Sunday at Windham Mountain. With 21 students in tow, we were on the mountain by 10 am, ready to tackle new trails and tricks.

Harlem Shake it Up, hahahaha!

Savion, Zaakirah, and Jackie laid their first tracks down on What’s Next? and White Way. (By the way, did you know all of Windham’s trails start with a “W”?)

Savion

Zaakirah

Jackie

Mr Ollie Kid aka Khaliq showed us how its done. But Khaliq don’t get too comfortable, Armani-Rae and Alexis have been nailing ollies too! 🙂

Let's Get It!

Jerrie’s group ventured off to the K Lift for the first time.

Heeyy Ms. Jerrie!

Jordan & Nathaniel

Tyson

Makhii gave the Aratik USA board sport trainer a try and looked good doing it!

Makhii

Sunday. February 27th will wrap up our season. I have to admit, it has been the best. We’ve had a chance to meet great, new people, reconnect with old friends, serve more youth and had more time on the mountains. And with all of the fresh snow Mother Nature has dumped on us, the season as a whole has been every skier and snowboarder’s dream.

There’s a ton of pictures on our Facebook page, so go take a look. And if you aren’t already, follow us on Twitter!

Cheers,

Liz