Q. Also please tell us about your “Off The Ice” Charitable foundation. A little bit of the history and the goals for the future.
A. The foundation originated in 2010 a few years after my grandmother, Alice Belz (who I was named after!), passed away from lung cancer. She quit smoking later in life and smoked during a time we did not know the potential consequences. Growing up near Philadelphia, I saw kids selling drugs and smoking cigarettes instead of playing sports and made me ask myself how I took a healthier path. It was what I did “Off the Ice” that contributed and realized athletes have an ability to make a difference. I took a bottom up approach to fighting obesity, disease and cancer through starting Off the Ice Foundation as a premier grassroots skating sport organization.
We provide skating equipment, developmental programs, and financial help to young athletes, schools, and communities in need. OTI’s goal is to promote sports as the road to achieving an active lifestyle that inspires health, creates character values, and instills goal development; enabling children to achieve great things in all they do. We provides our Skate in School program to schools and organizations in local communities and our GRIT Power Skating for Hockey program to young athletes. We someday hope to partner with larger organizations such as the NHL/ECHL and have had talks of expanding our programs to other countries.
Click through to learn more about the Off The Ice Foundation on their website