Making a difference: helping young people during lockdown

Challenging times make the work of our charity partner stem4 more important than ever, so we were pleased to catch up with what difference our – your – donations on every sale are making during the pandemic.

We charge 20% commission on sales at WhoSki.com, and pass on 10% of that sum to teen mental health charity stem4. By doing good for the environment through extending the use of your preloved ski and snowboard clothing, you are also helping support the wellbeing of young people.

Lockdown and its limitations on travel mean that sales at WhoSki.com have been hit. Let’s face it, how many of us have gone anywhere near the piste since last March? However, we are keen to honour our commitment to our charity partner, so recently made an extra donation to the stem4 coffers. We believe that the work of stem4 is more important than ever during this difficult period.

Supporting mental health

We were therefore pleased to hear that our donation helps provide free access to vital resources for thousands of young people via Calm Harm, a potentially life-saving app for those experiencing urges to self-harm.

A spokesperson for stem4 explains: “Your support is so important to us, and never more than at a time when many young people are finding it hard to adapt to new and ongoing restrictions and a way of living which may have a negative impact on their mental health.

“Having support such as yours, enables us to reach as many teenagers and young people as possible through our award-winning apps, digital resources and informative website.

“stem4 pledges to reach 100,000 young people annually, has 543 schools signed up to our Head Ed secondary school mental health programme and seen over two million downloads of our free digital apps to date.

Responding to need

“Whilst our face-to-face conferences are on hold, we continue our aim to extend our reach to highlight the importance of early identification and intervention of mental health conditions and improve and enhance access to free clinically informed resources. I’m delighted to report that two parent conferences were digitally delivered to audiences of several hundred parents and support such as yours enables us to deliver when and where it’s most needed.

“stem4 has worked tirelessly over the past year to respond to urgent need, to secure funding to create and deliver new COVID-19 specific resources and video guides and to culturally and linguistically adapt our resources through translation to support BAME communities most affected by the pandemic. We aim to expand our reach further into 2021, and to support the inevitable negative impact on young people’s mental health from COVID-19.”

We proudly donate 10% of the commission we take on every sale at WhoSki.com to stem4. You can make additional private donations via their website here.