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What’s Next for Chris Waddell and One Revolution?

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

One Revolution is Waddell's motto for this expedition, and his life. "One revolution means so many things to me. One revolution of the handcycle, one revolution of the earth, one lifetime, one moment, one chance to make a difference." One Revolution is also the name of the documentary which will capture Waddell's journey to the summit of Kilimanjaro. "The documentary is an important part of my climb, as my story is a visual one. People need to see to understand," explains Waddell.

Hello All,

What’s next? I guess climbing a 19,000-foot mountain begs that question and I intend to answer it, but first thank you all for following our efforts. It was so cool to get your emails and posts of encouragement. I am totally blown away by the number of you that followed us. I apologize for disappearing for a couple of days. There was no attempt to heighten the drama. We just lost of cell and satellite service in the crater. I’m sorry if any of you worried for our wellbeing.

This project started because I thought we could create social change about the way that we see ourselves and others. My platform is physical disability, but I hope it extends to include all of us who feel limited by what we or other people think. In September we made it to the top of the mountain, but we’ve barely scratched surface on creating social change. The answer to what’s next: hopefully a lot. Hopefully, we take our mission of “visibility and opportunity” to locations around the world the way that we did with Kili, but we have to finish this job first.

We plan to grow “Mobility Revolution”, our wheelchair and handcycle donation program. We’re still working on these parts. On the film side, we have shot 200 hours of footage, which needs to be cut into a 90-minute feature length documentary. Through that visual medium, we can capitalize on the momentum from the climb to create social change. It’s all about the “mo,” which is why I’ve been totally crazy since I returned from Africa.

On the flight home, I stopped in New York City to attend the Sports Legend Dinner for the Bunoconti Foundation. Later in the week I spoke to a group at Unicef and then did a press conference for the Utah press at Westminster College in Salt Lake City. October brought me to New Orleans for a presentation to TEAMS 2009, then to San Diego for the Challenged Athletes Foundation annual Triathlon and three Nametags presentations to La Jolla Country Day, then back to the East Coast for a day with ESPN (Firstake, News, and a Newsmakers presentation) in Bristol, and a trip to Boulder, Colorado for meetings with Warren Miller Entertainment about the film and possible partnerships. At the end of November I head to Monaco for Sports for Peace Conference hosted by Prince Albert.

Needless to say, it’s been crazy, but we did the climb to create a buzz—to hopefully get people to notice us and they have. We’ve done a ton of press, both local and National. I have also partnered with New York Times Best Selling Author, Don Yeager to write my story. We’re exploring alternate possibilities for the film such as creating a tour to take it and our Nametags presentation to communities throughout the country as soon as next fall. This would be in addition to film festivals and hopefully network television. Our biggest goal is to reach as many people as possible. The tour also represents a greater opportunity for sponsorship to help finish the film.

Next steps: We need to raise money and sponsorship to finish a rough cut for the film. We need to put together a tour, figure out partnerships, get a publisher for the book, and really make the change that we intend. It’s a lot of work, but the climb gives us a ton of momentum.

Thanks for your continued support and I hope you’ll continue to follow the Blog,

Chris Waddell

Catching up with STAND Grand Prize Winner Leslie Freeman of Wild Science Explorers

Monday, November 16th, 2009

Fly fishing schoolThe Hybrid.Stand contest was a KEEN initiative in 2008 that awarded $150,000 to fund different innovative ideas centered on sustainability. There were three overall categories, Stand Up, Stand Out and Stand For, each having a grand prize of $25,000 and 5 runner-up prizes in the amount of $5,000.

Leslie Freeman was one of three grand prize winners; she won $25,000 to put towards her non-profit organization, Wild Science Explorers. Established in 2000, Wild Science Explorers is an organization which offers river-based science courses providing children with hands-on learning. The organization tries to focus on serving the needs of low income youth who normally would not have the opportunity to participate in such types of activities

The outdoors become their classroom as participants take a 3-6 day paddle trip down the Salmon and Snake Rivers where they study various things including fisheries, stream ecology, water quality and botany, to name a few.

This is what Leslie had to say about how the STAND Award helped Wild Science Explorers:

“The KEEN award has made an incredible difference in the day to day operations of Wild Science Explorers. The award enabled the purchase of all the gear necessary to go down the river. Now that we don’t have to borrow or rent gear, we can focus more on program delivery. This year, we created a unit that integrated fly fishing and aquatic insect ecology in addition to the activities we already do on fire ecology, noxious weeds, Native American history, and geology.

Paddle Boat

KEEN funds resulted in the purchase of two fully outfitted oar boats, a trailer to haul our gear, a paddleboat and all sorts of river camp equipment. Our program is more sustainable in the long-term because of KEEN. This year our trips went incredibly well—the participants had an amazing time and did a myriad of different activities. We worked with youth from the Boys and Girls Club, Boise Parks and Recreation, Teens Restoring Earth’s Environment and several Boise area high schools and junior highs.”

 

To learn more about Wild Science Explorers, please visit www.wildexplorers.org.

Bagel Friday at the Office with a Hybrid.Care Twist

Friday, November 13th, 2009

Every Friday we have a bagel breakfast for the entire office.  This Friday we did something a bit different…raising $2,000 for charities near and dear to KEEN employees.

KEEN Japan World Cup 2009 - Highlights of Freestyle Kayak Competition

Friday, November 13th, 2009

Here is some great footage of the KEEN Japan World Cup 2009, which took place in Toyama.

My KEEN Story on Robinson Crusoe Island

Thursday, November 12th, 2009

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From: Stefan Springman
Subject: My Keen Story

Dear KEEN,

I’ve been having some foot issues that have recently forced me to give up running and bought a pair of KEENs [called the Alyeska] to wear around the house while my foot heels. I’m a documentary producer/director and was a bit worried about how my foot would fair while working on a project I’m producing for The History Channel on a remote island in the Pacific called Robinson Crusoe Island (Really!). My crew is young and tough and we would be spending long days humping heavy gear over rugged mountains and I was worried about whether I could keep up. I threw my KEENs in my backpack at the last minute thinking I could use ‘em to give my ol’ dogs a rest around the campfire at night. But after a few days of climbing around El Yunque — my expensive Italian climbing boots became a pair of torture devices and I was forced to switch to my KEEN slippers even for some quite hairy rock climbing. I just wanted to write to you and say the KEENs were great! My foot pain went away and I didn’t fall off the mountain (or even come close).

Stefan Springman
NFGTV

Fixing a Bike at the Office

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

Jevon’s past life as a bike mechanic comes in handy at our office. Fellow KEEN employee Jason needs a bit of work done on his bike.

Pebble Pedalers: Two Brothers Cycling 17,000 Miles to Raise Awareness of and Garner Support for Bristol Bay Watershed in Alaska

Monday, November 9th, 2009

Pebble Pedalers and KEEN ambassadors Seth and Parker Berling were featured on the CBS news a couple weeks ago.  Click on the image below to watch the video.

Pebble Pedalers

The Pebble Pedalers are trying to bring awareness to the Bristol Bay watershed up in Alaska, which is in danger of a mining operation. They are truly out there living the HybridLife.

About the Pebble Pedalers

In July 2009, the Pebble Pedalers, a two-man team of conservation-minded cyclists began a 17,000-mile journey to raise awareness of and garner support for protecting the Bristol Bay Watershed from the largest proposed open pit mine in North America. Riding through 15 countries—from Prudhoe Bay, the northernmost point accessible by road in Alaska, to Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost tip of Argentina—we work towards preservation, protection and the restoration of watersheds throughout the Americas in partnership with Trout Unlimited.

Disc Golf — Field Testing the New MILO & Learning How to Play

Thursday, November 5th, 2009

A handful of folks from our office went out to a local disc golf course (Pier Park) to check out the new MILO disc golf shoes and to learn about how to play the game. Dave Munk, our in-house expert, shows us just how the game is played…

350 River of Action: A Personal Account of International Day of Climate Action

Monday, October 26th, 2009

Hundreds of kayakers, paddle-boarders and canoeists gathered on the Willamette River Saturday in support of the International Day of Climate Action. Together, we joined our boats, creating “350” in the river, a representation of the 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that is the safe upper limit, according to leading scientists.

Check out this short video about the event…

Creating our 350 was NOT as easy as it sounds!! We’d get the “0” in perfect formation and the “5’s” would start drifting apart. We’d get the “3” picture perfect, and the “0” would be floating out of camera view. “EVERYONE PADDLE SOUTH” the mega-phoned guy on top of the bridge would blast, and we’d scramble south and re-form our numbers.

Photo by Julie Serres (5)

Portland provided a beautiful fall day, crisp sunshine, brilliant river; paddle boarders, gorillas and salmon kayakers. And regular folk like me, aboard a boat loaned from Alder Creek Kayaks, praying I don’t dump myself in the river. A diverse group of people with a love for paddling and a desire to become part of the International Climate Action. A desire to join up with concerned citizens around the world to face our most daunting challenge.

We laughed, joked and maneuvered our crafts around haphazardly, jostling each other into formation; somehow managing to get into a fairly decent representation of 350 before the 0’s floated downriver and under the bridge. The camaraderie and spirit of the event was wondrous. We could feel the energy from around the world as more than 5,000 other actions were taking place simultaneously. Rivers have currents, and this movement of climate action has current ~ joining together later in the afternoon with close to 1,000 citizens in Downtown Portland for another rally.

Photo by Mark Gamba

I work at KEEN; at KEEN we’re striving to be good corporate citizens, creating awareness while creating great outdoor product. It’s joining up with projects like this which make it good fun to be part of this team. Projects like this are important. THANK YOU ALDER CREEK for loaning me the BIG YELLOW KAYAK.

—-

The 350 River of Action event would not have been possible without the help of Naish, Epicocity Project, Alder Creek, Northwest River Guides, Next Adventure, NRS, The Kayak Shed, Mayor Sam Adams office, Mark Gamba, and many others who helped make this all possible.

Is Hiking Better in KEEN? Targhee II Testimonial . . .

Monday, October 26th, 2009

The following testimony was emailed to us by Jessica Culnane who is the NW Field Marketing Representative for Clif Bar & Company. Jessica went hiking with her dad in the Mt. Baker- Snoqualmine National Forest. They hiked to the top of “The Tooth,” a popular peak (5604′) near Seattle, Washington.

Jessica Culnane (1)

Here is what she had to say  . . .

Jessica CulnaneNow that our event season is getting slower, I can finally reach out to you like I’ve been meaning to. I’ve been rockn your shoes all over the place! Thanks again. I wanted to share that I wore the Targhee II that you gave me on a climb this summer and they were phenomenal! I’m pretty critical of gear, especially shoes, and I was quite impressed. We had a 4 hr one way approach full of boulder fields to get to a trad climb we were trying to summit. All the way up there, your Targhee’s kept me on stable and up right and blister free!  On the way home, we underestimated our time and were caught lost in the dark. Another pair of climbers were stuck in the same situation and when we ran into each other way out in the boonies at 9pm, I could see we both had the KEEN characteristic reflective back loop. We proceeded to talk about how much we liked our shoes and how they exceeded our expectations.

And a comment from her dad . . .

One more tid-bit: Both of my big toenails are turning black (a precursor to them falling off) due to The Tooth climb in my 3/4 fiberglass shank climbing boots, and you didn’t event get a blister in your KEENs!