Most people are nice when given a chance, but Olympic snowboard gold medallist Hannah Teter is a real sweety - the globetrotter has been spending her precious spare time making maple syrup by hand and giving the proceeds to the World Vision charity. She’s made $5,000 dollars so far selling the $15 bottles, and will be appearing on TV in December to promote her venture.
The nineteen-year-old is serious about turning her newfound celebrity into a tool for altruism. Since being catapulted into the spotlight after her half-pipe blaze at Turin last February, Teter is a regular house-hold name in the U.S., but the country girl from Vermont would rather do the majority of her cashing in for charity than use it for personal gain.
"People know me as a snowboarder," she recently told the Boston Globe, "but I want to branch out to different avenues, really reach out and raise money". Her product, aptly named Hannah's Gold, is already spinning money in more way than one - she also has agreements from Okemo and Burton Snowboards to donate $1 each per bottle sold.
"Hannah's Gold is the first step. I plan to do more, keep building." The ideas are like mountain snow right now, more kinetic rush than specifically targeted, but even as a novice fund-raiser, Teter intends to make maximum impact. "I wondered where the money would help the most," says Teter. "I thought of Africa. I read up all I could on it. I read about the AIDS and the hunger and I thought this would be the best place to start."
Hailing from a boarder family, Teter got an early start on her snowboarding career. On board when she was 8, Teter took her first lesson at home mountain Okema because she wanted to keep up with her older brothers; siblings Abe and Elijah are members of the U.S. Team, and her oldest brother, Amen, is the full-time manager and agent for Team Teter.
Off the pipe, Teter enjoys skateboarding, surfing, soccer, and - along with entire Teter family- making syrup. Every year, in a ramshackle shed on the sprawling Teter property near the Green Mountains, the family gathers thousands of gallons of sap and then laboriously boils it over an open fire, producing syrup. When they were younger, Hannah would join her brothers in climbing trees to hang buckets for sap collection. The process has been modified in recent years, but the family still gets together every March when the syrup is ready, and Hannah's notorious for carrying the homemade topping to have on hand while she's on the road. Now the family tradition is serving a greater purpose, as well as keeping her connected to her roots. "Not being here for maple syrup season," says Teter, "is like missing Christmas."
The talented teen is intent on continuing to push the boundaries of modern snowboarding, and regularly jets around the globe with sponsors Motorola, Burton, and Mountain Dew. "They keep me pretty busy," Teter says, but she's still finding time to spread the syrup love. "I plan to go over to Africa soon to soon to see where and how the money is being spent," she says. "I don't just want to lend my name to these projects." And that, my friends, is a plan that's as good as gold.