On Wednesday, May 17, 2023, Ignite Adaptive Sports, who has been providing winter sport opportunities to adults and children with disabilities since 1975, broke ground on their brand new 12,000 square foot building at Eldora Mountain. The prospect to provide an updated adaptive sports facility has been a dream project in the making for nearly a decade.

Staff and volunteers for Eldora, Ignite, and POWDR were present for the historic groundbreaking, as were various sponsors and organizations such as Canyon Cares, Indian Peaks Wilderness Alliance, the US Forest Service, Leave No Trace, and the Native American Rights Fund.

Representatives of Senator John Hickenlooper and Representative Joe Neguse’s offices, and the family of beloved Ignite Board President, and visionary behind the partnership with Eldora for their new facility, David Levin, were also present.

The new building is being constructed at the base of Eldora’s Little Hawk run and will be replacing the “temporary” trailers which have housed the Ignite offices at Eldora for several decades. The building will not only house Ignite’s offices, but also a state-of-the-art adaptive ski school, as well as Eldora’s Children’s Ski and Ride School, an outdoor deck, food and beverage service, indoor bathroom facilities, and outdoor patio seating.

The new facility will also include an elevator which will take athletes in wheelchairs and other mobility limitations directly to the skier loading area. The current procedure involves instructors pushing students uphill for 300 yards. The building is projected to open its doors by May 2025 or sooner.

Emcee for the event Billy Goldstein began the festivities by telling his personal story of losing his leg to a diabetic infection and believing his life had changed for the worst, until he found Ignite and was welcomed into the world of adaptive sports.

“Being disabled does not define what you can’t do, but rather it gives us an opportunity to show the world that anything is possible. And this mountain behind me is our stage in which we demonstrate that,” Goldstein said.

Goldstein energetically introduced the speakers for the groundbreaking, including Eldora President and General Manager Brent Tregaskis, Eldora’s Director of Sustainability and Project Development Hunter Wright, Ignite Board President Tom Kissinger, Nederland Mayor Billy Giblin, Director of Community Affairs from Congressman Joe Neguse’s office Emma Marion, and Roberta and Matt Levin, wife and son of former Ignite Board President David Levin.

Tregaskis spoke of the long, and sometimes arduous, journey in working with Boulder County, the US Army Corps of Engineers, and several other organizations in achieving the moment of actually breaking ground on the facility. The anticipation to finally put shovels to dirt was so great that, just behind the ceremonial piles of dirt and gold shovels and the stage, excavation equipment and crews had already been hard at work for several days.

Kissinger spoke highly of Ignite’s partnership with Eldora and of all the volunteer groups who championed the need for the facility and helped make the prospect a reality. He joked that, despite all the other advances in adaptive sports that will be present within the new building, the concept of indoor bathrooms is what garnered the biggest cheers from the audience.

Eldora’s Director of Sustainability and Project Development Hunter Wright gave an extended shout-out to all of the organizations that helped contribute to the project, including Nederland Elementary and the Ned SHRED program, Peak to Peak Endurance, Special Olympics of Colorado, TEENS Inc., and Wild Bear Nature Center.

Director of Community Affairs from Congressman Joe Neguse’s office Emma Marion spoke of having grown up in Nederland, having grown up skiing on this mountain and being thrilled that the Ignite building is finally being constructed.

The Mayor of the Town of Nederland spoke about his desire to continue to improve and build Nederland’s relationship with Eldora, and talked about his work with the National Sports Center of the Disabled in Winter Park for five seasons, and the importance of the work that organizations like Ignite is doing.

Roberta and Matt Levin spoke emotionally about David’s legacy and about how proud they were to see his dream come to fruition. David was a visionary and was adventurous in many of his pursuits, including starting a hot air balloon resort, becoming a pilot, and dedicating his efforts to Ignite for several decades. David passed away unexpectedly in 2017 from pancreatic cancer, but his passion for adaptive sports lived on in those who continued to push this project across the finish line.

“David and I were fortunate to see the show Hamilton just before his passing,” Roberta Levin told the crowd, before quoting a line from the show. “‘What is a legacy? It’s planting seeds in a garden that you’ll never get to see.’ When that line was spoken David looked at me, and I looked at him and he said ‘that pretty much says it all’.”

The panel of honorary speakers were the first to grip a shovel and pose for the cameras of all the residents, volunteers, sponsors, staff, and media. The representatives of the many organizations involved with this monumental project posed with shovels in hand, signifying the very real labor and the heavy lifting that was done to move this project beyond being just a thought on paper.

To find out more about Ignite, check out their website at https:// igniteadaptivesports.org/ or their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/igniteadaptivesports/