University of Alaska ski team reinstated after successful $628K fundraising campaign
Ski Racing Media and its readers directly contributed $100K
Photo courtesy of Bob Eastaugh.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska The University of Alaska Board of Regents has reinstated the university alpine ski team after the program raised enough money to save itself from elimination.
“It’s official! We’re back!” head coach Sparky Anderson messaged the team on Friday.
The board unanimously voted to reinstate the program after the team reached its fundraising goal of $628,000 in December. The University of Alaska Foundation certified the donations before the vote.
Part of the overall campaign, Ski Racing Media, in conjunction with the Team America Foundation, launched its own matching campaign totaling more than $100,000 in cash, which will be delivered upon reinstatement of the program.
Alaska university ski team reinstated after $628K fundraiser
by The Associated Press
Last Updated Jan 16, 2021 at 11:44 am EDT
ANCHORAGE, Alaska The University of Alaska Board of Regents has reinstated the university alpine ski team after the program raised enough money to save itself from elimination.
“It’s official! We’re back!” head coach Sparky Anderson messaged the team on Friday.
The board unanimously voted to reinstate the program after the team reached its fundraising goal of $628,000 in December. The University of Alaska Foundation certified the donations before the vote.
The board previously voted in September to eliminate three sports, including alpine skiing, hockey and gymnastics because of budget cuts. The cuts would have saved $2.5 million a year from the athletic budget, or more than $9 million in the 2019 academic year, university officials said.
In the month after a city mask mandate took effect, there was a 60% decline in virus transmission, and two other orders caused an even more substantial decline, the report found.
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One of the biggest challenges for distributing the COVID-19 vaccine from drug companies Pfizer and BioNTech is keeping it cold.
But Dr. Ellen Hodges, contending with sub-zero temperatures on a remote Southwest Alaska airport tarmac last month, had the opposite problem as she prepared to vaccinate frontline health-care workers.
“It became immediately apparent that the vaccine was going to freeze in the metal part of the needle,” she said. “It was just kind of wild.”
Distributing the COVID-19 vaccine is hard enough on the road system. But the obstacles in rural Alaska are on another level.
Dozens of remote villages lack hospitals and road connections, and ultracold freezers are essentially nonexistent.
Rural Alaska presents challenges for vaccine distribution lmtonline.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from lmtonline.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.