Snowball Effect helps resorts create experiences that build confidence, fuel participation, and turn first-time families into lifelong guests.
Snowball Park Snowball Park is a turnkey, mobile, play-based learning environment that brings outdoor sport to kids wherever they are. Easy to deploy, simple to operate, and built to scale across disciplines, spaces, and seasons. Instructors lead the learning while Snowball the Mascot brings the energy, creating joyful first experiences that build confidence, grow participation, and turn first-time families into repeat guests.
ONBOARD Snowball Effect Initiative
ONBOARD Snowball Effect is a youth sport, community, and sustainability initiative built to help resorts deepen their roots in the communities they serve. Anchored by Snowball Park, a portable play-based program, ONBOARD meets families where they are and layers in sustainability at a pace that fits each partner.
Why Choose ONBOARD?
Proven impact. 5,000+ lbs of food scraps diverted, 57K+ single-use items eliminated in one season
Nationally recognized. This initiative was co-created with Mount Southington and won the 2025 NSAA Golden Eagle Award for Community and Partnerships
Ready to run. Turnkey tools and partner ecosystem, built to start small or go big
Building Resort Pathways Around the World
25+ Countries · 1.5 Million Miles · 100+ Resorts
From first-time experiences to long-term participation, Snowball Effect’s leader has worked with resorts across diverse cultures, communities, & countries.
Expertise: Extensive leadership in youth snowboarding and winter sports, with a proven record of designing first-time experiences that build confidence, joy, and long-term participation.
Reach: Over 1.5 million air miles traveled supporting resorts, schools, and communities across 25+ countries, bringing snowboarding to kids in diverse cultural and learning environments.
Impact: Collaborated with hundreds of resorts and ski areas to create scalable, play-based pathways that help kids start snowboarding and want to come back.
Recognition: Mount Southington and Snowball Effect won the 2025 NSAA Golden Eagle Award for Community and Partnerships, the ski industry's most prestigious honor for innovative community programming.
Global Perspective: Deep understanding of how kids learn, play, and progress on snow, shaped by hands-on experience across global markets, resort models, and four Winter Olympics activations.
Success Stories
GRIT ‘N SNOW
This 2023 NSAA Award Winning collaboration was started at Mountain Creek when they collaborated with The “Y” in Lakeland Hills, NJ, the Mental Health Association (MHA), and Peapack-Gladstone Bank to develop a unique twist on the Riglet program that incorporated Mental Health components. The inspiration and goal was to help youth build resiliency (GRIT = Growing Resilience In Time) and to introduce kids to snowboarding, first inside the Lakeland Hills “Y” gym, and then take them to Mountain Creek’s slopes so they could apply those learned skills on the snow. Going into it’s second year, all GRIT Instructors received training from the MHA as Youth Mental Health First Aiders.
RIGLET
Burton Riglet products and programs are a game-changer for kids snowboarding. The Burton Riglet Reel, Riglet Park, Hover Cover and the Riglet K-2nd physical education program, kids snowboarding has never been easier! This was Boliba’s mission when he got to Burton in 2000, to break down as many barriers as possible for kids and to carve a path for creativity and innovation to happen globally. By empowering parents and teachers to introduce kids to snowboarding as soon as they fit into the Toddlers’ Mini Grom 7C kids boot, the smallest of kids are able to be introduced to snowboarding anywhere at anytime.
THE STASH
In 2003, Jake Burton Carpenter asked Boliba to help bring innovation and creativity to the way resorts were building terrain parks. His vision was to inspire more riders to explore the entire mountain and for resorts to utilize more of the natural features and habitat at resorts. This innovative Stash program launched in 2006 at Northstar at Tahoe and helped resorts progress park building, run design & the utilization of more natural materials. Stash Parks are located at a few select resorts globally and blend components of freestyle riding with flowy all-mountain lines for a snowboarding experience like no other. Learn more at the Discover section of the Burton website. The Woods are the Goods!
Testimonials
