Matt McSparrin is a longtime member of PTPI who has had an incredible level of involvement. We recently found out about Matt’s latest acheivement, the creation of a new business, so we caught up with him to find out a little bit more:
We were thrilled to learn about Red Mountain Adventure Inc. Can you tell us more about your business and what the motivation was behind its’ creation?
Well I was originally working for the Boy Scouts at a ropes course but was very limited in who I was allowed to let one the course. If a person had any handicap they were not allowed on. Well this got me to thinking “why?” I tried expanding the program at the course to allow disabled participants to be able to climb and zip. We did manage to get a few groups but the Boy Scout red tape was too much and moved too slow for me, so I created Red Mountain Adventure.
We believe that everyone can experience adventure despite of any handicaps that they may face. We have come up with some cutting edge equipment set-up and facilitation techniques to allow paraplegics and quadriplegics to be able to participate.
Red Mountain is not only a teamwork and trust training facilitator. We hope by the end of 2009 to open our first challenge center consisting of a high and low course with a tower, a community park, nature trails and fitness in the woods program. Red Mountain is also dedicated to community awareness. We hold trainings in CPR/First Aid/OSHA/ServSafe, and we make our property available as a training resource for fire police and EMS.
You have been very active with PTPI, as a GYF and GYFHC alum, as well as a Student Chapter founder and a YG. Do you have a favorite PTPI experience?
My favorite PTPI story would have to be from my trip to the Global Youth Forum Humanitarian Conference (GYFHC) in Cape Town (South Africa). We were at a school in the slums for the afternoon. Our job that day was to help the teacher plan a basketball skills camp. We had lots of fun with different relays and events. The team I was on won the last relay. The teacher came to me and Brandon (another GYFHC participant) and gave us one bag of cheese doodles to give to the winners. I was amazed at the faces and the thank you’s every child gave when they got their ONE!! cheese doodle. (What happened to this in America–being thankful for every little thing?)
The whole group was so moved by the experiences that day that a group of GYFHC delegates decided to pass a hat on the bus to try and collect some money for a basket ball hoop for the school and maybe some balls or shirts (their hoop was only a bent piece of wire attached to a flag pole).
It is so hard though to pick just one experience from that trip as the entire trip brought about a transformation in me to be thankful for everything in my life. And anytime I feel like complaining when things get tough I think about those that we helped in South Africa.
A hawk finds a place to rest on Matt McSparrin's head during the 2005 GYFHC in South Africa
What would you say if asked to describe what PTPI means to you?
To me PTPI is true people meeting face to face, people to people, and experiencing and learning from each other. That is the true road to peace. And no one said it better than Dwight D Eisenhower :
“I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.”
Tags: Dwight D. Eisenhower, Global Youth Forum, Global Youth Forum Humanitarian Conference, Student Chapters, Travel
First aid protocols across the USA and Europe seems more uniform these days. It is good to help and save lives! We learn new things on a daily basis.