Nordic skiers experience the great outdoors every day throughout winter. We get to enjoy a lot of sunsets, beautiful scenery and we depend on breathing in a lot of fresh air. Often we get to see wildlife living their best winter lives too. The team’s favorite sighting at practice is a herd of deer that have several mature bucks in their midst. You will have to ask the athletes all about the buck’s point systems and ratings. These daily experiences outdoors make us more aware of the ecosystem around us that does get impacted by our individual decisions. Our team works together to create a positive environmental impact through our annual collection of used tennis shoes. We collect the community’s worn-out athletic shoes and send them off to be reused or recycled. Reusing and recycling shoes places less stress on our environment by cutting down on the carbon dioxide production and water use that occurs when shoes are made from brand-new manufactured materials. This season the Nordic team collected 418 pairs of shoes that were eligible for the reuse/recycle program. As a result, 418 shoes were not placed in a landfill (shoes take 30-40 years to decompose in a landfill). 12,540 pounds of carbon dioxide was not emitted into the atmosphere and 943, 426 gallons of water were saved in the process.