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SOS Outreach Wins Gatorade’s For the Love of Sports Contest

January 7, 2017

One of our grantee organizations, SOS Outreach, successfully obtained funding from a contest titled, For the Love of Sports, organized by the Gatorade Company. The following is an excerpt from the press release by Rebecca Gould, Media Contact for SOS Outreach:

“On Wednesday, November 30th, local nonprofit SOS Outreach outvoted the competition and secured the top prize of $50,000 from Gatorade’s For the Love of Sports contest! The voting campaign, featuring Gatorade’s sponsored athletes Usain Bolt, Elena Delle Donne, Paul George, April Ross and Serena Williams, brought a total of fourteen national nonprofits together to compete in four rounds of voting, with each round’s winner receiving a $50,000 donation. SOS Outreach won the final round of voting by receiving 49% of total votes received during the six-week open voting period. Competing nonprofits included Disabled Sports USA and Girls in the Game… SOS is grateful for the incredible support of all members of the SOS family who worked tirelessly to get this victory. With this donation, the organization looks forward to providing more opportunities for underserved youth in the outdoors while fueling the love of sports mission.”

Founded in Vail, Colorado in 1993, SOS Outreach inspires youth to make positive decisions for healthy and successful lives. They attain this mission by introducing underserved youth to adventure sports like skiing, snowboarding, rock climbing, mountain biking, and backing. The program delivers long-term life skill development to youth through progressive outdoor programs, in return providing value to the communities where the programs operate.

According to Seth Ehrlich, Executive Director of SOS Outreach, “the funds from Gatorade will be directed to both bolster existing programs and provide support for the organization to expand regions. We will be using the funds to launch a pilot program in Detroit and more than double outreach of programs in Salt Lake City. In addition, we are on pace for our largest year yet for winter programming in existing locations.” SOS outreach currently programs on 31 mountain resorts throughout the West including locations in Colorado, California, and Washington states. The program serves over 5,000 youth annually.