CanTeen - Alpine Adventure

Earlier this month, we were contacted by the charity CanTeen, an Australian national support organisation for young people living with cancer. They were in the final stages of planning their 2018 Alpine Adventure to the Australian Snowy Mountains and wanted to include Finding The Line as part of their weekend activities.

We just received feedback from the weekend, including some awesome pictures. We were soo excited to be able to contribute to the event and hope it continues to run in the future!

"This year the CanTeen Over 18’s Ski Trip looked a little bit different, in fact, a lot different because the areas that were usually white with snow were still green. There was no snow! However, this didn’t stop an amazing group of young people coming together and having a wonderful time.

Moving forward with a positive attitude the Ski Trip was renamed the “Alpine Adventure” and on the 12th of June 26 CanTeen Members from all corners of Australia including Perth, Adelaide, Queensland and Tassie, travelled to Canberra then onwards to the Snowy Mountains.

For many years this program has been made possible by the generous donations of Thredbo Resort and Southern Alps Ski Club who run Christiania Lodge. The Southern Alps Ski Club gift their whole lodge for the week for us to use including delicious breakfast and dinner every day. Because we have the whole lodge to ourselves a unique environment is created where the CanTeen Members feel comfortable and safe to share their stories about their cancer experience and really get to know each other. By the warmth of the fire, on the comfy lounges young people had time and space to make connections. They said “I had an amazing time thank you for giving me the opportunity and hopefully I can go on another camp” and “I loved the group activities where we shared our own experiences or stories.“

This year, even though we couldn’t ski the staff at Thredbo went above and beyond to make sure we had a great experience. Our week was filled with chairlift rides, hot chocolates, village walks, visits to the Leisure centre, pool, gym and yoga, as well as a private screening of a soon to be released Australian Ski Film, Finding the Line. The film screening was donated by Nat and Anna Segal who star in and produced the film. As the week progressed a little bit of snow arrived. Although this wasn’t enough to ski on, there was plenty for snow ball fights and even building a snowman! One Member said “It was such an amazing experience. Wasn't even disappointed about not being able to ski. And I loved how flexible you were with the program when we couldn't do want we originally planned.”

CanTeen Member Hayley said “THANKYOU so much to all the Thredbo staff who made this camp amazing! All the staff were so kind and caring and we're always happy to help if we asked!”

To find out more about CanTeen - check out their website: https://www.canteen.org.au/