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From his early years, Willie Ford unknowingly set on a path that would lead him to the helm of the National Ability Center, a program founded 40 years ago around a kitchen table in Park City by Pete Badewitz and Meeche White. From those modest beginnings, the NAC has grown into a major national resource to provide profound life-changing outdoor experiences for people of all abilities. Ford essentially grew up at Holderness School, a small private boarding school in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. His father was the dean, math teacher and football coach, and his mother coached the ski team. 

“I saw what a positive impact living in a campus community dedicated to outdoor recreation can lead to,” he says. “I always at some point I’d be doing something along those lines.”

That early inspiration observing the rewarding work his mother and father undertook as teachers, coaches and mentors would become a fundamental touchstone for Ford.

After college at the University of New Hampshire where he was a two-time All-American member of the ski team (thanks, Mom), he found his way to the outdoor gear biz. First as the co-founder of Givego, a company that connects athletes with professional coaches, as well as Cake, a Scandinavian maker of premium lightweight electric motorcycles, and POC, a Swedish company known best for its iconic goggles. Thirteen years ago, POC was acquired by Utah’s own Black Diamond and Ford happily found himself in Park City.

“I’ll always be a New Englander at heart, but out here the snow is lighter and the sun is brighter,” he says of the move.

Ford always found himself drawn toward the experiences that had informed his early life. Like the High Fives Foundation, an adaptive sports organization in Truckee, Calif., where Ford was a volunteer and a board member. At High Fives he gravitated toward working with Military to the Mountains program that wounded veterans experience skiing and snowboarding. 

“I understand the impact that outdoor experience can deliver,” he says. “When I heard about the NAC, I always thought I would love to be a part of that organization. When the word on the street was that the CEO position was open. It hit me like a bolt of lightning.”

After an extensive search, the NAC tapped Ford for the job last summer.   

“We have a big responsibility,” he says. “Helping individuals get outside their comfort zone, and leave with confidence, inspiration and self-esteem, proud of what they accomplished. That’s just part of it. So many families tell us that ‘my son or daughter felt completely invisible until they came to the NAC.’ There is so much massive potential for us, and our team finds ways to unlock these huge human hearts.”

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Park City Fashion Week brings the runway to Sundance

“We just want to give Sundance a taste of us,” said Park City Fashion Week founder, Kim Kienow, as she took the stage to close out the fifth annual Park City Fashion Week on Sunday, January 27. 

The Marquis on Park City’s Main Street was transformed into a high-altitude fashion show, where local reality TV celebs, like Real Housewives of Salt Lake star Meredith Marks and Secret Lives of Mormon Wives cast member Demi Engeman, and Miss Utah USA were among a slew of dressed-to-impress attendees who took their seats to get a glimpse of established and emerging designers in Utah and beyond.

This year’s event also included, for the first time, a handful of Park City boutiques that delivered on Kienow’s request to present an editorial look for what they sell in their shops on the runway

“I was really proud of our designers and what we put out on the runway,” says Kienow. 

Park City Fashion Week is a huge undertaking, organized and produced by Kienow with the help of volunteers to bring the event to life during the Sundance Film Festival. It’s a feat in and of itself to get a venue during Park City’s busiest—and perhaps most expensive—time of year. But Kienow sees the festival as an opportunity to introduce Utah’s fashion talent to audience members from around the world. 

“In the future, I would love to see more sponsored dollars so that I could go bigger with it and maybe even do it for more days of the festival,” Kienow says. 

Park City Fashion Week’s fifth year culminated in an intersection of art and fashion, with stunning paintings by Utah multidisciplinary artist Eddy Ekpo on display throughout the venue and Sarah Luna Art‘s intricately woven pieces mounted on the walls.

On the runway, models took the stage—and an alarming set of stairs—to show off looks ranging from Hannah Gordon’s illuminated pieces and statement streetwear conceptualized by Ogden brothers Phillip and Micah Petty of Soul By Amè to Sabrina Carpenter meets retro bridal looks by Hannah Ruth Zander, who was featured in Vogue.

The fashion show included a few breaks, where artist videos played and, during one of the breaks, Tunisha Brown, founder of Impact Magazine, which supports Black women, announced the launch of Élevé Fashion Magazine. 

The fashion show featured 10 designers, with Project Runway Season 6 winner, Irina Shabayeva, and hairdresser/makeup artist-turned designer Heggy Gonzalez closing out the show. 

Kienow invited attendees to mingle while visiting the upper level, where Panache and Chamomile boutiques had products out on display for purchase along with TJ Holdman’s custom handbags with inlaid glass. 

The 2025 Park City Fashion Week left attendees buzzing with excitement, eager to mingle with designers and sharing what they were dying to get in their personal closets. VIP attendees left with gifts from event sponsors such as Cozy Earth, Minky Couture, and Utah Facial Plastics. It was an experience fitting for the glitz and glamour of the Sundance Film Festival. 

“I was extremely proud of the entire event,” Kienow says. “It went really, really well and people, I think, really enjoyed it.”

Celebrities take note: your next favorite designer just might be at the Park City Fashion Show.

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Skip the apple. Thank the teacher who made a difference in your or your kid’s life with a Jazz game honor and a classroom grant.

Instructure, a Salt Lake-based educational technology company, is sponsoring the fourth annual Utah Jazz Most Valuable Educator award.

You can nominate a Utah teacher, kindergarten through college, to receive two tickets to a Jazz home game, including dinner in the Toyota Club and on-court recognition, and a personalized jersey. In addition, winners receive $1,000 classroom grants from Instructure and surprise classroom visits or organized assemblies with the Jazz Bear and personnel from Instrutcture and the team.

According to Instructure, several winners have been honored so far this year, and 60 MVEs have been honored since the award’s inception. Typically, nominations come from students or their parents, and the teachers are usually surprised.  

“Instructure began the Most Valuable Educator Program to highlight the critical role educators play in our society. This program connects directly to our company’s mission to elevate student success, amplify the power of teaching and inspire everyone to learn together,” said Ryan Lufkin VP of Global Academic Strategy at Instructure.

You can nominate a teacher on the Utah Jazz website and visit Instructure’s site for a list of past winners.

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Before 2002, cross-country skier Luke Bodensteiner, who competed at the University of Utah and in the 1992 and 1994 Winter Games, remembers, “Utah had a strong sports community,” but, he says, “I wouldn’t say that, aside from Alpine skiing, that Utah was necessarily a ski town,” and sports like freestyle, cross-country and ski jumping didn’t meaningfully exist here before 2002.

Bodensteiner worked for U.S. Ski and Nordic Team at the time, while they were pushing for the inclusion of new sports and events, like slopestyle and big air, that were oftentimes pioneered in the U.S., and they knew Americans could field good teams in those areas. It was an evolution of winter sports that started before 2002 but took off around the Salt Lake City Winter Games. “That was sort of the first big expansion in my mind, when places like the Utah Olympic Park were developed,” he says. “Just having those facilities provided the opportunity for people to participate, and that stimulated the growth of clubs around those sports.”

Now, Bodensteiner works as the Sport Development Director and General Manager of Soldier Hollow with the Utah Olympic Legacy Foundation (UOLF), which maintains Olympic facilities, including Soldier Hollow Nordic Center, the Utah Olympic Oval and Utah Olympic Park. “The [2002] organizing committee was pretty visionary in their desire to make sure that there was a lasting legacy after the Games,” he says, which was something that set Salt Lake City apart from many other Olympic host cities. “Before that, other Olympics, obviously, were really focused on making the Games happen, but there wasn’t a lot of forethought in terms of what’s going to happen to the facilities after.” The financially successful games left behind a legacy fund that kept Utah’s Olympic venues in “world-class” shape, where Olympians would train and compete.

Even then, the Olympic venues’ full potential had not yet been realized. “After the games, people were coming in and seeing the building [the Oval] but then leaving because there weren’t any real programs that were being run here,” says Derek Parra, a U.S. speedskater who won gold in the 2002 Games. He started doing youth outreach at UOLF after the Vancouver Games and is now the Director of Sports at the Utah Olympic Oval, but Parra gives credit for envisioning the venues as a place for youth sports to Colin Hilton, the president of the foundation. They hired coaches and created programs to engage kids and “teach them about life through sport” in hopes of creating long-term athletes. “If you look at every other Olympic venue in the world, there aren’t many that are doing this,” Parra says. “I think we are the best example of that.” 

At Soldier Hollow alone, Bodensteiner says they have some 500 kids participating in their programs. With all of the UOLF programs combined, nearly 3,000 kids participate. “The gravitational pull of the Legacy foundation and its ability to bring clubs together under one roof has just really allowed that whole thing to explode,” says Bodensteiner. And it doesn’t hurt to have elite athletes, and former Olympians like Bodensteiner and Parra, running the programs.

“When you have experience as an athlete, you have a certain level of intuition about what the next generation of athletes needs or what the programs need,” says Bodensteiner. 

“It was easy for me to kind of pay that forward,” says Parra about his experience coaching. “I was bringing in kids who were kind of following my footsteps.”

Future Olympians

Utah boasts dozens of former Olympians and Olympic athletes who claim Utah as their home because multiple U.S. Olympic teams have headquarters and train here. We saw a class of athletes, inspired by watching the 2002 Winter Games, compete in Turin, Vancouver, Sochi and Pyeongchang. Now, we have begun to see more Olympians, too young to remember 2002, emerge from Utah with the support of Utah’s enduring Olympic legacy.

The Youth Sports Alliance (YSA) was founded as a result of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games and has become a way to inspire future Olympians. Its goal is getting as many kids as possible—from all different backgrounds—out, active and using the Olympic venues, without the typical barriers to entry (like lots and lots of disposable income).

“Our afterschool programs are unique because we provide transportation, proper gear and proper clothing so all kids can participate,” says Emily Fisher, Executive Director of the Youth Sports Alliance, but no one group is singled out. “We don’t run programs just for specific parts of our community. All the kids get on the same bus. They have the same experience, share the same snacks, and talk about wipeouts together,” she says.

Last year, more than 2,500 kids from 23 local schools participated in more than 150 after-school programs. YSA also supports seven local winter sports teams in the Wasatch Back. If the young athletes can’t afford team participation, they can apply for a YSA scholarship to pay for fees, camps and competitions.

The YSA has a reciprocal relationship with the Legacy foundation, using the Utah Olympic Park and Soldier Hollow for after-school programs. The UOLF provides the coaching staff and at the end of the program, Fisher says, “[The UOLF] can reach out and say, ‘Hey, you just tried four weeks of biathlon. If you’d like to join our club, come try out for one night for free.’”

From the ranks of the YSA, the young careers of multiple Olympians and Olympic hopefuls have emerged. In 2022, three after-school program alumni qualified for the Olympics.

Among them, 25-year-old Ashley Farquharson first rode a sled down an Olympic track as part of a YSA after-school program. She competed in luge at the 2022 Winter Games. Nordic combined skier 25-year-old Jared Shumate started in the YSA after-school program as well. He had the strongest finish of any American in the large hill event in the Beijing Winter Games. Speedskater Casey Dawson, 25, has set a world record and won a bronze medal in team pursuit at the 2022 Winter Games. 

And YSA alumni certainly have high hopes for the 2026 Winter Games in Milan and Cortina, Italy. “We’ve had really great success with the Nordic jumping program,” says Fisher. Josie Johnson, 17, was an alpine skier in the after-school ski jumping program. Last year, she won a silver medal at the Youth Olympic Games.

The chance to “sample” activities, beyond Olympic dreams, is important, Fisher says. As a lifelong athlete and cross-country ski racer, she can speak personally to the difference it makes. “To be able to provide that for the community I’ve been in for 26 years, it’s definitely my dream job,” she says.  

Bodensteiner adds, “It’s about offering people opportunities to engage in sports. The more people we can get involved, the more we are building up that culture in our communities.”

And those communities built around sport can become lifelines. Parra says, “Everything I learned in my life—the lessons that I learned through the people around me, the communities I was in, the sport that I was participating in, and all the failures and successes that I had, whether it’s budgeting, accountability, teamwork, treating people nice—all that came from my time in sports.”

Countdown to 2034

When the International Olympic Committee visited Utah in April, they met with the Youth Sports Alliance, sharing the impact they have had with local kids since 2002. “And they just—they love that,” says Fisher. With the 2034 Winter Games returning to Utah, she hopes to see the YSA model spread to more communities across Utah, beyond the Wasatch Back. “When I look ahead at the next nine years, I think about how many lives we can change,” she says.

Bodensteiner expects excitement about the Games will only grow the closer we get to 2034. “Now we can really kind of take that to the next level, modernize what we’re doing at these facilities.” At Soldier Hollow, for example, they hope to invest in more efficient snowmaking that will allow for a longer ski season. 

Just as the 2002 Winter Games helped grow new skiing events, Parra sees an opportunity for growth in other sports here in Utah. “I don’t feel like we are in a skating state just yet.” In Milwaukee, where he learned to ice skate, at the rink “everybody comes with their own skates,” he says. Utahns pass down skis and snowboards but, “There isn’t that generational passing on of the skates or the love of skating…But we have nine more years until the Games.”

On Legacy

When Alma Richards competed in the 1912 Olympics, he was an oddity among the East Coast-bred, Ivy League members of the U.S. Olympic Team. Amateur sport competition was a game for the aristocracy. Richards’ Native American and Hawaiian teammates were also considered “exotic” by the press. The U.S. did not send a single woman to compete that year, even though women could participate. When Richards’ hopes for another Olympics dwindled, he turned his focus to the next generation, perhaps unknowingly establishing an Olympic tradition. Biographer Larry Gerlach observes, “As an athlete, he gained enduring recognition…[but] clearly, as an educator he made his most important and lasting contributions to his fellow humans.” 

By 2002, 90 years later, the demographics of the Games had changed. Derek Parra became the first Mexican-American to win an Olympic gold medal, but, in Parra’s own words, he spent every coin he had to make the Olympic team. Former Olympians, like Parra, Bodensteiner and many others, turn their focus to the next generation and make these once restricted spaces—expensive club sports, elite competition, world-class venues—as accessible as possible.

If there is an Olympic legacy that Utah could carry into the best version of the 2034 Games, it would be the tradition of becoming more inclusive, more accessible, and leaving things better than we found them for the next generation.  

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Read more about Utah’s Olympic legacy here!

Make-A-Wish Utah and Burt Brothers Tire and Service Wish Proclamation

Aug. 23, 2024 • Smith’s Ballpark, SLC   

It was a magical night at the Aug. 23 Salt Lake Bees Game, where 11-year-old Layton resident Kash, who has been undergoing treatment for a brain tumor, threw out the first pitch. Immediately following, Burt Brothers Tire and Service CEO Brian Maciak and Make-A-Wish Utah Development Director Summer Ehrmann led a surprise wish proclamation ceremony to grant Kash’s wish to visit Atlantis in The Bahamas with his family. More than 500 Burt Brothers’ employees and family members attended to support Kash’s Make-A-Wish and fundraising continued through September at Burt Brothers locations. Make-A-Wish Utah creates life-changing wishes for children with critical illnesses. Research shows children who have wishes granted can build the physical and emotional strength they need to fight a critical illness. Located in its facility in Murray, The Kahlert Foundation Wishing Place, Make-A-Wish Utah offers a life-affirming wish experience at a time of vital need to children throughout Utah. For more information, visit utah.wish.org.

Scion Cider’s Summer Soiree

Aug. 21, 2024 • Scion Cider Bar
Photos by Jeremy Pugh

Scion Cider finished summer strong with its first-ever Summer Soiree. The event featured local cheeses, jams and meats on a 12-foot-long board created by The Board by Addie. The guests mingled and enjoyed specially designed pairings from Scion and other local and regional cider makers. For more information on future events, visit scionciderbar.com.

Promontory Foundation’s Happiest Hour

Aug. 27, 2024 • Promontory Club, Park City 

Park City’s most exclusive, private community foundation, Promontory Foundation, hosted its annual grant reception, The Happiest Hour on Aug. 27, 2024, awarding a record $400,000 in grants to 32 nonprofits that serve the Park City and Summit County area. Promontory Foundation raised the funds through generous donations from Promontory Club members during its annual summer fundraising events. This year’s $50,000 “Promontory Promise Grant” was awarded to PC Tots, a non-profit that provides high-quality early childhood education and care to children and their families regardless of financial barriers. The complete list of non-profit grant recipients can be seen at promontoryclub.com/promontory-foundation.

Utah Clean Energy Unveils the Climate Innovation Center

June 5, 2024 • Climate Innovation Center, SLC   
Photos by John Aldrich 

Utah Clean Energy hosted the grand opening of the Climate Innovation Center with a press conference, ribbon-cutting ceremony, and tours. The Climate Innovation Center is one of the most high-performance buildings in the nation and raises the bar for buildings in Utah and beyond. A central goal of the state-of-the-art facility is highlighting the opportunity to modernize our homes and buildings to cut emissions and combat climate change. Find out more at utahcleanenergy.org. 

Salt Lake City Department of Airports’ Blue Tie Gala

Sunday, Sept. 14, 2024 • SLC International Airport
Photos by SLC International Airport

The Salt Lake City Department of Airports hosted a “Blue Tie Gala” event four years after opening Phase One of The New SLC. The pandemic prevented the airport from hosting a Black Tie Gala in the fall of 2020, so the event provided an opportunity for staff involved in the Airport Redevelopment Program along with community leaders to celebrate four years later. 

The gala took place in the “The River Tunnel,” provided a preview of this large-scale art installation by artist Gordon Huether. The River Tunnel is one of many large-scale art pieces installed at The New SLC Airport that represent the beauty of Utah. Guests heard the music of the tunnel for the first time at the event. More than 100 songs were curated by artist Gordon Huether as part of The River Tunnel art installation and feature music that relates to travel and Utah. 

Get Social!

Submit your photos and be featured in Salt Lake magazine! For more info email magazine@saltlakemagazine.com

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In the run-up to the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Games, you may recall, there was a large flap surrounding the bidding campaign to bring the Games to Utah. During that turbulence, public support for the Games waned. One local company, O.C. Tanner, played a special part in keeping them on track. And it was, as they say, the beginning of a beautiful friendship. 

“Our CEO worked behind the scenes with Olympic leadership and our board to commit a sizable chunk of our charitable donations to the United States Olympic Committee,” says Sandra Christensen, the Vice President of O.C. Tanner’s Awards Division. The donation would be manifest in three familiar Olympic denominations: bronze, silver and gold. O.C. Tanner produced and donated the medals for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. The 2002 gold and silver medals were the heaviest Olympic medals ever created and, for the first time in Olympic history, the medals were varied for each sport, featuring 16 unique artists’ renderings of the various snow sports featured in the Games. 

Thus began a legacy of partnership between O.C. Tanner and the USOC (now the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee—USPOC). 

Following the success of the 2002 Games, O.C. Tanner’s Awards Division was tapped to design the commemorative rings each U.S. athlete receives for making Team USA. Now, going on 13 Olympics, the company has presented more than 10,000 rings to every U.S. Olympic and Paralympic athlete who makes Team USA.

The rings, Christensen says, become a vital part of the athlete’s Olympic journey. 

“It is the one thing they are guaranteed if they make Team USA,” she says. “Making the team itself is a huge accomplishment and this ring acknowledges that. Not all of the athletes will make the podium and earn a medal, but they all get their ring.” 

Veteran athletes who have made Team USA for multiple Games strive to “collect all five,” Christensen says. “So they have one ring for every finger.” 

Two years ago, snowboarding legend Shaun White told GQ Sports that his first Team USA ring (he has five total), earned when he was just 19 years old, is one of the 10 things he can’t live without. (Note to Shaun: If the rings are lost, O.C. Tanner will replace them.)

“Not a lot of athletes are going to carry their medals around,” Christensen chuckles. “So the ring becomes this subtle reminder for them and something they cherish.”

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Read more about Utah’s lasting Olympic influence, here!

It’s official. Salt Lake City, Utah will host the 2034 Winter Olympics, with a staggering 80% of Utahns in favor of hosting another Winter Games. Much of the success of 2002 still lingers, quietly permeating everyday life with reminders that look like everything from shining steel arenas and monuments to our light rail public transportation. But, there is more to the legacy of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games. The seeds of Utah’s love for the Olympics date back to 1912 and a young man from the town of Parowan.

Utah’s First Olympian

In May 1912, a gangly, 22-year-old from Parowan, Utah rode the train from Provo to Chicago—his first time leaving the Beehive State—to compete for a spot on the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Team. Two years prior, at BYU, Alma Richards had told his soon-to-be coach Eugene Roberts that he hadn’t even a concept of what the Olympics were, but Roberts saw potential in young Richards and put him on the path to competing in the 1912 Stockholm Olympic Games.

In his book, Alma Richards: Olympian, former University of Utah professor, Dr. Larry Gerlach, describes the meteoric ascension of Richards as an athlete. The local press called Richards “the Mormon Giant.” Gerlach says, “After only a year of collegiate competition, Coach Roberts ranked Alma as one of the seven best high jumpers in the United States and among the 15 best in the world.” 

At the Central Olympic tryouts in Illinois, the athlete from Parowan was a virtual unknown, competing against high jumpers from major collegiate programs and prominent amateur athletic clubs. Richards ignored officials when they told him he could not compete in what would become his signature floppy hat (which Richards dubbed his “mascot”). He cleared 6-feet-3-inches, the highest he had ever jumped, to qualify.

With his large physique, “farmer boy” appearance and unconventional technique, he was underestimated. Still, Richards told anyone who asked that he would win the gold medal and clear 6-feet-4-inches. When a teammate challenged him, pointing out that he’d never jumped that high, Alma agreed. “But I will,” he said.

The world expected Americans to dominate in “Athletics” (the original name for the track and field events), but Stanford University’s George Horine was the favorite to win the high jump, with his record jump of 6-feet-8½-inches.

On July 7, 1912, crowds gathered to watch the 23 athletes competing in the high jump. Richards amused them by wearing his old hat, atop his crisp, white Olympic uniform. He struggled to clear the qualifying height, 6-feet-2-inches, missing his first two attempts before narrowly succeeding on the third. He earned a spot among the 11 finalists, six of them Americans, including Jim Thorpe—a Native American track star and All-American football player who would go on to win gold medals in pentathlon and decathlon.

As one high jumper after another faltered, only fellow American George Horine, Richards and Germany’s Hans Liesche remained. Horine failed to break 6-feet-2½-inches, earning him a bronze medal. Liesche “sailed” over a bar at 6-feet-3-inches (a new Olympic record) while Richards struggled, again needing all three attempts before clearing the bar. With the bar then set to 6-feet-4-inches, Richards jumped first and shocked the world, clearing the height with ease. Liesche missed all three of his attempts.

Alma Richards, the “farmer boy” from Parowan, had won an Olympic gold medal in high jump. 

His Olympic success marked an early moment of triumph in a life filled with athletic achievement, both as a competitor at BYU and Cornell University and later as an educator. “Alma Richards was more than an Olympic hero. He was a public relations ambassador for his state  and church…that had previously received little sports recognition in the national press.” But, according to Gerlach, “What cemented Alma’s celebrity, primarily to  Mormons,” was the portrayal of him in the LDS Church’s cultural contribution to the 2002 Winter Games, a 90-minute dance, musical and theatrical spectacular called “Light of the World: A Celebration of Life.”

Alma was not the only Olympian portrayed in the massive show, but he took center stage. As to why, Gerlach quotes BYU’s Richard Kimball: “Whether it was 1912 or 2002, recreation and athletics remained viable ways for the church to inculcate values and model proper social behavior.” The show took liberties and perpetuated inaccuracies, but why would they let the truth get in the way of a good story?

Utah Olympics Medalists Throughout History

While many Olympians have trained in Utah, some are born here, and others choose to stay

Find even more medalists with Utah connections from the 2024 Paris Olympics here!

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Maresa Manzione smiles as she recalls her family hosting a Japanese exchange student when she was 12 and when her new friend returned the favor, welcoming her to Japan four years later.

“We had so much fun that my mom got involved as a volunteer placing the students,” she said.

While the group Manzione’s family originally worked with no longer runs its Utah exchange program, the nonprofit Mountain West Cultural Exchange now brings Japanese kids to the Rocky Mountain area to stay with local families.

The spring program runs March 25–April 3, 2025, and the nonprofit is now looking for host families.

Manzione, who chairs MWCE, said the ideal family would be open-minded, desiring to learn about another culture and share their own and ready to build a lifelong friendship. Families are given a small stipend for gas but are expected to cover other expenses. For spring, they are required to have a child at home already.

“The expectation is they treat the delegate as part of their family and incorporate them into their family,” she said. 

MWCE is expecting 15 delegates aged 11 to 17 and one adult chaperone needing host families. Prospective families may learn more about the delegates on the MWCE website.

While it’s not a “sight-seeing experience,” Manzione reminds families that the delegates are traveling across the world, likely for the first time, and would love to see what makes Utah special.

“I’ve noticed in my own family that it just makes the world seem smaller,” said Manzione, whose family has also hosted through MWCE. “My kids are less judgmental about other cultures and other ways of life.”

Learn more about Mountain West Cultural Exchange at mwce.website.

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