For children with cancer, and other life-threatening illnesses, life often looks like the inside of a hospital room, with pokey needles, uncomfortable treatments and hard conversations.
But each spring, the nonprofit Shining Stars gives dozens of kids from across the country the chance to get away from it all — and enjoy a week of skiing, friendship and creativity during the organization’s Aspen Winter Games.
Some of them have never seen snow before. But by the end of the program, when the entire cohort gathers for a race day on Panda Peak, everyone has found a way to cruise down a slalom course with about 200 feet of vertical.
Kids lined up on skis, snowboards, sit-skis and snow bikes for this year’s event, which took place under clear blue skies on March 28. Some of them made quick, tight turns around the gates. Some chose a more leisurely path. And one decided to ski right down the middle — then kept going right past the finish line — amid cheers, neon tutus, and a chorus of cowbells.
17-year-old Merry Yacht, from Longmont, said the whole experience of Shining Stars was a little overwhelming at first. She’s only skied once before, and was a bit stressed about missing a week of school to come out here.
But she picked the sport up fast, and says she’s really glad she came.
“Anxiety doesn't have to determine everything. … I got to push it aside and do what I wanted to do instead,” Yacht said near the finish line of the race course. “So that was really great.”
Yacht found out about this opportunity from the HOPE Survivorship Program at Children’s Hospital in Denver, which supports young survivors of cancer and bone marrow transplants.
She appreciates that this event introduced her to lots of new friends who can really relate to her experience.
“I've never been able to connect with people that really understand what I've been through, so this is a really good time to talk about it with everyone, and they actually understand,” Yacht said.
Ja-Mare Daviss, a 17-year-old from Phoenix, says the community she’s found here will stick with her when she heads back home.
“We didn't make friends, we made potential family members and people that we come to the rest of our lives with,” Daviss said.
Daviss said this program has pushed her out of her comfort zone.
She wasn’t crazy about the idea of winter sports, but she’s developed an appreciation for the mountains, and said that this week has changed her perspective for the better.
“Before I came out here, everybody used to be like, ‘Why do you look so sad or depressed?’” Daviss said. “And like today, for the first time of me being here, somebody looked at me and they're like, you look so happy.’”
Shining Stars has supported hundreds of kids since the Winter Games started in 2001. The program is totally free for participants; it covers everything from accommodations to adaptive ski lessons to equipment. It also includes talent shows, arts and crafts, pool parties and plenty of pizza.
And the event has always emphasized a message of joy and possibility for kids who are coping with painful, exhausting illnesses.
“In the hospital, kids don't control anything,” said Dr. Larry McCleary, who helped found this event with Kathy Gingery and Hal O’Leary.
McCleary was a brain surgeon at the Children’s Hospital in Denver. He often operated on kids with brain tumors, and connected with oncologists and their young patients.
“You know, they're told when they need labs drawn, surgeries, procedures, spinal taps,” McCleary said. “Out here, kids are king, so they take control. And we challenge them with a mountain, and they're successful, and that, we hope they take over into real life: They can do it.”
Ellie O’Keefe, a 12-year-old from Chicago, definitely picked up on that lesson.
“I went down a really hard blue so I'm proud of that,” she said after finishing one of her slalom runs. “I'm bragging to all my cousins.”
She heard about Shining Stars from her neuro oncologist, and it didn’t take much convincing for her to say yes.
‘I was like, ‘heck yeah,’” O’Keefe said.
O’Keefe said this week has been an “incredible” experience. She was even inspired to write some motivational slogans of her own.
“One was, ‘Stars shine brighter when they're cancer fighters,’” she said. “And the other was ‘Cancer’s strong, but it can't ski.’”
