Bo Torrey

October 23, 2014

PRT-5395
Grant Proposal
Utah has the Greatest Snow on Earth. Utah also has some of the greatest
avalanche danger in the world, within sight and only minutes away from where the
majority of the states population lives. Avalanches kill more people each year than any
other natural event in Utah. Since 2004 the Utah Avalanche Center has been presenting a
Know Before You Go basic avalanche awareness presentation to middle and high school
students around the state of Utah. Since the programs inception KBYG has been
presented to over 160,000 people. This year (2014) is the first year the Utah Board of
Education has approved the KBYG program as a PE elective. Teachers are encouraged to
utilize our on-line curriculum as well as the free, statewide, assembly presentation. The
board sent out an email offering the schools a chance to have an avalanche professional
come in free of charge and present to their school. This increase in demand has forced the
avalanche center to spread the existing resources very thin to meet demand, and in some
cases caused us to turn away schools and miss out on the opportunity to raise avalanche
awareness and possibly save a life. The Utah Avalanche Center is seeking a $25,000 grant
to increase and update current presentation equipment including (4) projectors, (4)
speaker sets; (4) wireless presenters; (4) luggage bags to store equipment and the addition
of (2) part-time KBYG avalanche presenters as well as add and update new avalanche
footage to current KBYG video. The grant will help the Utah Avalanche Center to meet
the current demand for avalanche education, to raise avalanche awareness, and in turn

reduce the number of avalanche fatalities among teenagers and young adults. (13-26
years olds).

Willard L.Eccles Charitable Foundation

Annual contributions: $ 1,354,321 for 54 grants

o High $ 690,000
o Low $ 900
The Willard L. Eccles Charitable Foundation is a family foundation dedicated to
the health and well being of the land and people of Utah, Oregon and the
Intermountain West. This mission is accomplished primarily through its support
of non-profit organizations addressing needs and opportunities in the areas of

basic science, education, the environment, social causes and health care (
Fields on interest
o Education
o Environment
o Health Care
o Higher Education
o Human Services
I believe that the Willard L. Eccles Charitable Foundation would be an
appropriate foundation to approach for funding our grant because of their similar
beliefs and previous fields of interest. Their dedication to education and providing
human services to the community is why they will see value in the KBYG
program. This is one of the largest foundation in the state and a $25,000 grant
seems to be among the smaller sized grants they are willing to fund.

The Community Foundation of Utah

Annual contributions: $1,113,308

o High $ 750,000
o Low $ 200

Fields of Interest
o Education
o Community development
o Community connection
The Community Foundation of Utah prides itself on being a catalyst for
philanthropy that is visionary, sustainable, inclusive and engaged. The KBYG
program is an interactive presentation to help raise avalanche awareness for a age
population that is usually unaware of the dangers associated with recreating in the
mountains.

Know Before You Go is a free avalanche awareness program. Not much science,
no warnings to stay out of the mountains, no formulas to memorize. In 1 hour, you will
see the destructive power of avalanches, understand when and why they happen, and
how you can have fun in the mountains and avoid avalanches. Most of the avalanche
fatalities in the U.S. and Canada occur to people who dont know they are in avalanche
danger and are unprepared to deal with an avalanche. Just as those in Hawaii learn about
the dangers of rip tides and shore breaks at an early age, students in Utah need to learn
about avalanches. What they learn can save their lives. The Know Before You Go
program was created to teach Middle and High School students the basics of avalanches
- how destructive they are, when and where avalanches happen, and what they can do to
protect themselves. KBYG was presented statewide 126 times to about 15,000 people in
winter 2011-12, about 2/3 of those presentations were for youth groups and the remainder
open to the public. Avalanche statistics have shown that ages 11-25 years old are among
the highest populations of avalanche fatalities in North America. The graph below shows
the statistics of avalanche fatalities starting in 1950. The highest age population of

fatalities being ages between 21-25 years old. In order to continue our efforts of raising
awareness we are going to need to present to at least 175 schools statewide. We are also
going to need to expand our community outreach program and offer more public KBYG
presentations for free in order to educate the 21-25 year old age group that is ranked
highest in fatalities. We believe that if we can raise awareness not only to that 21-25 year
old age group but also start to teach avalanche awareness to students at a younger age
(11-15 years old) then they can start to think about these concepts and recreational
hazards as the grow up. The goal of this program is to raise avalanche awareness for this
age group and in turn reduce the number of fatalities. With an average of 30 fatalities in
North America each year, there needs to be people working to help raise avalanche
awareness and reduce the number of fatalities. Currently we only have 2 full presentation
kits that include projector, speaker kit, wireless presenter, and Mac-adapter and luggage
bag to carry items in. Our main issue right now is that we do not have enough
presentation equipment and enough avalanche professionals to present the program. The
demand for avalanche education in the state of Utah is so high and the Utah Avalanche
Centers resources so thin and limited that we have had to turn away schools because of
our limited supplies and limited finances.

Image: http://avalanche.state.co.us/accidents/statistics-and-reporting/

Image: http://avalanche.state.co.us/accidents/statistics-and-reporting/
The goal of the KBYG program is to raise avalanche awareness and in turn reduce
the number of fatalities caused by avalanches each year. Reaching over 160,000 students
in the previous ten years it is a remarkable accomplishment for the program, however; it

is near impossible to tell how many lives we have saved or how many accidents have
been avoided because of our awareness program. In order to keep raising awareness in
Utah we need to expand of education operation. The demand for avalanche education in
Utah is outstanding; with the large population of people who recreate in the mountains
during the winter comes a large population that needs to become aware of the hazards
associated with recreating in the mountains. This grant would simply help us to meet the
current demand for avalanche education. By increasing our number of presenters, as well
as updating and adding to our presentation kits we can travel and teach the program to
more schools statewide. We can no longer turn schools away because of our limited
resources. It is our duty as the local avalanche center to spread avalanche awareness and
protect the public and especially protect our youth.

Item

Number

Item Cost

Total Cost

Epson Projector

$2500

$10,000

Logitech Speakers

$100

$400

Mac Adapter

$40

$160

Wireless Pointer/laser

$25

Equipment Luggage Bags

$75

$300

Video Rights

$1000

$1000

Presenter Budget

$3000

$5000

$100

$6000
Gas and Travel Budget

$5000

KBYG Pamphlet Print

$900

$900

Surge Protectors

$50

$200

Extension chords

$20

$80

Total

$24,140