Mission Statement

• By committing the resources of 4Caring.org and the infrastructure of Stanton Barrett Motorsports(SBM), Stanton Barrett made a significant impact on the sport of bobsledding in just the first season of involvement. Barrett’s assistance and contributions for bobsled pilot Grayson Fertig and his team made it possible for Fertig to acquire competitive 2man and 4man sleds that would give him the opportunity prove themselves at bobsledding’s highest levels FIBT World Cup Bobsledding.
• Organizing with creative management, 18 years of sports marketing experience, foresight for competitive efficiency and competitive resources will be the prevailing goal of 4caring.org and SBM bobsled program. All contributions of 4caring.org will excel bobsledding for the USA athletes and achieve the next level of success and efficiency. Demands on the athletes are intense to make it in the sport, with limited resources and expensive equipment to purchase and manage. 4caring.org looks to improve the abilities for athletes to gain resources and equipment with out the financial struggle, focus being taken away from their training and to allow focus on competition. Additionally, new implemented management program for bobsled developing drivers and team organization will be implemented, new equipment, race shop facility and transportation vehicles in Germany to cut significant long term cost with shipping and rentals; allowing developing and team athletes a strategy that has a plan with out the politics that are filled in sports.
• Grayson is just the first of many athletes 4caring seeks to reach out and help make dreams come true by providing cometitive equipment, funding, sponsorship and resources to compete and represent our country. Additionally, we look to help to remove the politics of national sports and allow people dedicated to hard work and motivation with talent succeed with out restrictions.
• Grayson made the 2006-07 USA World Cup Team and Won the 4 Man USA National Championships as a 4Caring Athlete.


Athletes


Grayson Fertig

Brock Krietzburg

Grayson Fertig

• The seasons prior to the 2006-2007 campaign were about gaining experience and skill with the long term goal of representing the USA at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. During those years Grayson Fertig raced in the minor leagues of bobsledding known as the America’s Cup Tour and the Europa Cup Tour and trained intensely in Lake Placid, New York. The top finishes he amassed and his commitment to the process of improvement were what inspired Stanton Barrett to back him. The 2006-2007 was the breakthrough season Fertig knew he was capable of. After a strong showing at the October USA Seeding races, 5th place in the 2man and 3rd in the 4man, Grayson won the America’s Cup 2man, 4man, and Overall Titles. Then in January with that momentum he brought his underdog team to the US National Championships and won the 4man title while placing 5th in the 2man. These results got him called up to race on World Cup Tour for the last 6 races of the season. With a different team, different sleds, and on tracks that were new to him Grayson attacked the World Cup field earning 5 top 20 finishes with 13th place as his highest finish against the world’s best. Despite not racing in 2/3 of the World Cup races Grayson is currently ranked 25th in the world. Grayson is determined to achieve the #1 world ranking during the next 3 seasons that lead up to the 2010 Games.

• Grayson relies on his diverse athletic background to propel him in bobsledding. In high school at Tabor Academy in Massachusetts he lettered in all but his first year of soccer and went on to captain the hockey, lacrosse, and soccer teams. Middlebury College of Vermont offered him the opportunity to play both hockey and lacrosse and once there he played on 3 NCAA Championship lacrosse teams and 1 NCAA Championship hockey team. In his senior year he captained the hockey team and earned the distinguished Buff Bermas Award.
• In 2002 Grayson graduated from Middlebury College with a degree in English(creative writing)/Studio Art. People have long seen his artistic interests as an unconventional pairing with his athletic pursuits, but for Grayson it is all very natural. For him the search for speed and hundredths of seconds on a bobsled track is very much the same as finding the right words for a poem or the defining lines of an intaglio print.
• Along with an intense off-season bobsled training regimen Grayson works in New York City as a personal trainer at the renowned Chelsea Piers Sports Center and as a youth hockey coach for the Manhattan Mini Mites.
• Grayson is an aspiring writer and visual artist. He hopes that his forms of expression can be as forceful and gripping as a bobsled ride.
• In his free time Grayson enjoys reading, surfing, skateboarding and the company of his family and friends.

4caring Building Athlete Program Planning
Present reorganizing, new planning will allow us to provide an efficient and economical environment that will thrust athletes of bobsledding, skeleton and luge into the next level of success; first on a business platform that will in return enhance athletes athletically and economically. The first phase of 4caring.org planning in the winter sports category is outlined in this website.  Our USA Olympic committee focuses on one thing Olympics, with short term goals on one prize, we look to the future of the athletes, building depth, building foundations for resources and proper budgeting and efficiency that has been lacking.  With resources and planning that enhances an ability to grow and achieve both long term and short term goals.  With your support the identified needs and recourses will be available to our athletes.  Many athletes time and input, including members of 4caring have thought out a plan that will allow the sport to take a direction it has been needing desperately.  Needs of a business platform that has been neglected to be implemented and marketing ideas developed with stratagy to help improve every aspect of athletes and their racing environment.  A primary focus to help is not only for our present World Cup athletes; however, our development of athletes and support of a program that can cultivate success and depth with in our USA winter sports.  Our USA team does not have any central location or facilities that allow for training our athletes near sledding tracks and have to travel to Canada for a very vital training facility an indoor push track.  We have a vision over the next 10 years that can help all USA athletes in many varieties of winter sport.

What 4caring seeks to do for World Cup Bobsledding and Athlete Development in phase 1, 2007- 2008:
-4 trucks that will haul a 2man and 4man sled at the same time. Allowing opportunity to decal vehicles with sponsors logos similar to SBM NASCAR team.
* Chevrolet makes a box truck called the Kodiak C7500.  We have used in the past a smaller vehicle called the Dodge Sprinter.  The Chevy Kodiak will allow for more space inside the truck and the option (with racks) to haul 4 sleds when needed. 
-Two trucks to be used in Europe for USA World Cup 1 and USA World Cup 2 teams $80,000 or vehicle sponsorship
-Two trucks to be used in Europe for USA development athletes in World Cup B circuit $80,000 or vehicle sponsorship
-Building or purchase of competitive 4-2man and 2-4man sled $150,000
-Purchase and research R & D of competitive FIBT runners for 2man and 4man $40,000
-Build and or purchase industrial land and building centrally located in Germany for storage, training, lodging and work place for sleds.  $300,000
-Work out equipment for European facility $50,000 or donations of equipment
-Indoor ice push track in Salt Lake area with:
*A maintenance hub where work can be done on the sleds, skeleton and luge equipment during the off-season that both enhances sleds and repairs them
*State of the work out facilities for all athletes to use
*Indoor 40-meter sprint track for training and warm ups
$1,500,000 or donations of land, building, equipment or machinery for ice house

What a World Cup bobsled, luge or skeleton athlete needs:
-The opportunity to support himself while working a maximum of 15 hours week so that his training and rest are an absolute priority
-Year round health insurance for the athlete and his wife and kids
-The chance to train for periods at a push track in the off-season.  
-A per diem that enable him to eat appropriately with respect to his training demands
-Either housing given to him or some kind of housing support that will not force him to work too much so as to detract from his training. Our goal is to build  or purchase housing near push track and training facility near salt lake.
-“I don’t think that an athlete needs a salary as currently this sport is not a revenue generating sport and therefore it makes sense that one is choosing to compete in it without the expectations of a paycheck.  Sacrifices are expected.  With that said if the funds are available every athlete could use a paycheck.” Statement by Grayson Fertig

Cost and needs vary and are distributed presently according to donations or funds from 4caring recourses.

Phase 2, 2008-2010-Expanding program to yearly maintenance and other winter sport athletes
Needs and cost of Phase 2 are yet to be determined at this point and need to further progress with Phase 1 of planning.

• To comfort those with ill family members, especially those with ailing children.
• To focus on 1) pediatric, 2) critical care and 3) surgical family waiting areas. The Emergency Department waiting areas would not be a priority consideration so as not to interrupt patient care.
• To approach people in waiting room only if they appear to desire interaction, and to be respectful in providing space when interaction is not desired.

• 5-10 volunteers filling pre-designated time slots, as suggested by this group
• Focused now on Tues/Wed with a desire to expand as foundation grows
• Volunteers from 4Caring leadership program
• Guests and celebrity guest may accompany volunteers at times
• Coordinator (Gina) to handle schedules and new volunteers appropriately

• Hospital overview — layout, history, philosophy
• Communication skills and body language understanding
• Diversity
• Loss and grief
• Families in crisis
• Practical matters (Do's and Don'ts)
• Proper interaction with patient treatment
• Discussions and patient complaints


Scripts have been created for the volunteers to have a standard interaction process, Click Here to view the scripts.