SOS Outreach celebrated its largest Park City cohort this year, with 579 youth participants getting outside on skis and snowboards. Closing out their ninth season in Park City, the nonprofit has grown almost 700% locally since its start in 2015.
The nonprofit organization began in 1993 in Vail, Colorado, to increase community access to on-mountain snow sports. Now spread to 15 communities across the nation, SOS Outreach reached 3,483 kids this year.
Trust and family, both built and born, is behind the staggering growth the organization has seen over the last decade, said Palmer Daniels, Park City program manager.
SOS first launched in Park City during the 2015-16 winter with just 73 kids in its introductory Learn to Ride program. Since then, it has expanded into multiple programs with multi-year progression, supporting kids from their first ski day through high school graduation, with their new Junior Mentor program, career development internships and parent-focused ride days.
“Our program has grown, and kids are staying in it longer,” said Daniels. “We have more and more families joining and gaining trust in what it can do, and it starts to spread. We’ve had younger siblings, cousins, and even parents get involved, just because one kid had a good experience that vouches for the program and having fun.”
A part of that growth has resulted from accessibility across language barriers, where SOS’s increase in Spanish-speaking staff has broadened their reach across Latino youth, who made up 57% of participants this past year, up almost 40% from the season prior. This season also saw the return of 13 SOS alumni volunteers.
“We are having more and more alumni come back as volunteers. Especially when those alumni are Spanish speaking, it creates such a strong, authentic connection with kids in the program,” said Daniels.
The Rosales family shows the power of the SOS community in action. Jamie Rosales first got involved with SOS in 2015, before returning to the program as a mentor, and encouraging her younger sister, Victoria, to get involved.
Jamie stepped in to spread the word about her experience growing up with SOS, helping to write the grant proposal that won the nonprofit a spot as a 2025 finalist for the Women’s Giving Fund. Jamie’s support has contributed to the experience of today’s generation of Park City participants, and inspires the continued growth of the program, in which Victoria is now a junior mentor.
“I’ve seen Jamie grow as this amazing role model. She stepped in to help support SOS in the community to get the word out about her experience and what it has meant to her, which is so huge,” said Daniels. “I just appreciate her diving in and trusting us and offering so much.”
The 2024-25 season marked the second year of the junior mentorship program. Designed for students who’ve completed SOS’s five-year mentor program, Junior Mentors act as peer leaders for younger participants, encouraging their leadership skills and confidence and giving younger kids more opportunities for community connection.
“That program continues to bring a lot of strength to our program, similar to alumni coming back as mentors, when our kids who have already experienced the program and their own takeaways from it, then can contribute back to it, is huge and brings so much strength,” said Daniels.
As the snow melted, SOS shifted gears into career development programming for older youth and alumni. Participants built resumes, practiced interviews, visited job sites and secured internships through partnerships with local organizations and ski industry connections.
This summer, four teens from Summit and Wasatch counties took their first steps into the professional world — one earning a job in the Park City Mountain ticket office, another interning with Armada Skis, a third working as a medical tech on the path to physician’s assistant school and a fourth coaching mountain biking at just 15 years old.
The program is held over two weeks in the beginning of the summer with professional development lessons, site visits and interviews with partner employers to give youth participants a glimpse at what is possible for them in town.
Heading into its 10th year, SOS Park City is poised to keep growing, with programming anchored in Summit and Wasatch counties. From Learn to Ride to Junior Mentors, family ski days to summer internships, the program is creating a full-circle model of youth empowerment, fueled by trust and community spirit.
Interested participants and volunteers can reach out to Palmer Daniels directly at [email protected], with volunteer recruitment set to reopen in mid-to-late August.