Last month, the Kelly Brush Foundation announced that the Snowbasin Sports Education Foundation was among 30 recipients of a Ski Racing Safety grant. In total, $100,000 in grants were distributed across the country in 2026.

Kelly Brush Director of Ski Racing Safety and Development Sam Streletsky told the Standard-Examiner that, from her own experience, safety is paramount in ski racing.

“I know firsthand — I’m also a ski racing coach and race official — that having appropriate net and protection equipment to host a ski race can be really expensive and hard to maintain,” she said.

She said that the grants are available for all sorts of safety equipment, though one major piece sticks out for most applicants, including Snowbasin.

“This is a grant cycle that any organization or club that helps maintain racing venues and are hosting anything from training for younger athletes all the way up to a World Cup can apply to get,” she said. “Mostly B-Net is what most applicants are looking for, and that’s the net that lines the side of a race venue. It’s typically red, but it’s pretty inclusive to padding that would be on a lift tower or maybe radios to replace to have absolute best communication in your venue or safety adjacent for sure, but primarily for B-Net. And that’s also what Snowbasin was looking to do — replace some of their aging B-Net to host quality, safer training.”

Streletsky said the grant has been around for 20 years and that the Snowbasin Sports Education Foundation will receive $2,000 during this cycle, noting that the entity received $5,000 in an earlier grant cycle.

She added that she is very impressed with Snowbasin Ski Resort’s commitment to safety.

“They have a pretty incredible venue there, and they, as a club, are hosting athletes new to the sport all the way up to hugely competitive college athletes and World Cup athletes,” she said. “There’s a lot of different people who are skiing in this venue, and it’s a big venue, so making sure that that net that’s been in circulation for years and years is able to be properly inventoried and replaced efficiently is great. I really love their application, too, because it really speaks to how safety is not a checklist for them, and they really value helping instill that culture of safety in their race community, and that is huge to know that that net is really being fully utilized as part of that culture.”

Streletsky said she’s happy to see these entities continuing to host major events and upgrade their safety systems in a time when it is growing more challenging to do so.

“There’s so much that goes into ski racing that it can be hard to forget things as they are happening so specifically, and that this is a grant cycle mostly just for one specific kind of safety thing is kind of crazy,” she said. “But I think it speaks to how much ski racing costs to exist well and to exist safely, that that’s kind of how we have to do things. I would say it’s really cool that Snowbasin is able to capture that with their events, so that they’re still wanting to host events there and stuff is awesome, because it can be hard to have resorts hosting events and athletes have to travel more, so it’s great that they get to have a good experience for their kids who are local.”

For more information, visit https://kbf.org/skiracingsafety/.