Every other week on NHPR, we like to put a spotlight on people and places doing interesting things around the state on Give Back NH.
Learn more about all that New England Disabled Sports has to offer, including volunteer and donation opportunities here.
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
Just up the Kancamagus Highway in Lincoln, nestled on Loon Mountain, is New England Disabled Sports. Since 1987, NEDS, as it’s affectionately referred to by its staff, has been providing adaptive sports instruction to students of varying abilities at both Loon Mountain and Bretton Woods.
Advertisement
Jessica Harney is the board chair at New England Disabled Sports. It was her father who co-founded the organization in 1987. His reason for doing so? To involve her sister in family activities.
Jessica Harney: I have a younger sister who lives with a cognitive disability, and we were here as a family, vacationing. She didn’t have tremendous motor skills at the time, and my dad was trying to teach her how to ski with bungee cords and a walker and two skis.
She says the impact adaptive sports — skiing in particular — had on her family was life changing.
Jessica Harney: It gave us the opportunity to have something to do as a family outside in recreation. And, you know, it quickly became that we could go anywhere in the world and be able to ski together. And skiing became biking and biking became swimming. And I truly believe that because of the motivation and the power of skiing and how it drives the motor skills and social skills, she gained other opportunities in life.
Vance Perry, development director at New England Disabled Sports, says the joy families feel is what keeps him coming in to work every day.
Advertisement
Vance Perry: A family came up with a child that has a disability, and they never thought that they would be a skiing family. I was able to take that kid out on the hill, show them what skiing is all about. And now the family kind of opened up their eyes to say, wow, we actually can be a skiing family.
For Geoff Krill, working at NEDS hits a bit closer to home.
Geoff Krill: So I started as a student actually in 1995, after I had my spinal cord injury accident and I was skiing ten months later and kind of started to build a career around it, you know, made those first few turns and next thing you know, I’m like, I really love this. It was all here for me. And I’m like, this could be a career for me. So it kind of then just evolved from that.
Geoff is the senior sports coordinator at New England Disabled Sports. He says that while teaching people to ski is what they do, it’s more than that.
Geoff Krill: You’re teaching people that they can do something they thought they might not have in their lives anymore. And to just be a part of a community together of people that understand, but also normalizing disability at the same time.
Advertisement
That is what drives Vance as well.
Vance Perry: We’d love to teach ourselves out of a job, right? If a family comes in here with maybe a child that has a disability, our goal is to get them to be able to ski as a family, and they don’t need NEDS anymore. They can go out there and say, hey, I’ve gotten the base skills and now I can take it out with my family and go ski independently, and I don’t have to come in for a lesson anymore.
One of the learning areas at New England Disabled Sports.
During my visit, I was able to see all that NEDS has to offer from several pieces of adaptive equipment designed to fit every need, to the slopes in the back where they teach students, and even downstairs into the locker room where I met Tom Walsh, a volunteer with NEDS. He says that volunteering is rewarding to him when he sees the progress the students make.
Tom Walsh: Everybody shows some signs of progress, and that’s very rewarding. And it’s fun for us to get out and ski.
It’s volunteers, like Tom, Jessica says, that make the organization feel like a family.
Advertisement
Jessica Harney: It’s amazing. You know, we have over 200 volunteers here, and it’s like having 200 family members with you every weekend year round. It really is about the family aspect. Everyone is here for the same mission, vision, goals and that is to have fun through sport and recreation, whether that be the winter or the summer.
A staple of many New Hampshire town fairs, the pig scramble may soon look a little different.
A bill signed into law by Gov. Kelly Ayotte last week requires the commissioner of the state Department of Agriculture to create best practices for any event in which people compete to capture a pig. Those guidelines will be published before the 2027 fair season, so they won’t be in place for any fairs with pig scrambles this year, such as the upcoming Deerfield Fair in the fall.
Generally, a pig scramble involves people of the same age competing to capture pigs that have been let loose in a large pen. Contestants have to catch the pig in a drawstring bag, and the first one to do so can take the pig home.
Rep. Cathryn Harvey, a Democrat from Spofford, is the prime sponsor of the bill. She said each fair has different rules for their pig scrambles, meaning some can be more humane than others. One aspect of the events she hopes will change is the bags pigs are captured in.
Advertisement
“They’re putting an animal in a plastic bag on a hot summer day,” Harvey said. “It isn’t a great idea.”
Although some fairs already use more breathable bags out of burlap, Joan O’Brien, president of the New Hampshire Animal Rights League, said she’s also seen pigs being kept in plastic bags for long periods of time after the event. Not only would a burlap bag improve the pig’s ability to breathe in the heat, she said, but she also wants fairs to require participants to bring an animal carrier for the trip home. Her organization was ultimately in favor of the legislation.
“If you don’t have a carrier, you should not be allowed to leave your pig lying in a bag,” O’Brien said, adding that some fairs already ask contestants to bring carriers. “You should be taking them right home.”
The Deerfield Fair has implemented another rule that O’Brien and Harvey hope becomes part of statewide best practices — having parents supervise their child in the pen. O’Brien once witnessed a child hang a pig upside down by its legs and then lower it headfirst into the bag.
“In the heat of the moment, the kids get excited and they just do whatever it takes to get the pig in the bag,” O’Brien said. She said parents should work with the event referee to make sure their kid is handling the pig humanely.
Advertisement
Harvey’s bill originally called for pig scrambles to be banned around the state, but both she and O’Brien feel that universal guidelines for fairs would still make the experience better for the animals. Even seemingly small things, Harvey said, like giving the pigs water after the scramble, would be an improvement to the current situation for them.
“I think that the bill will embolden people to speak up at these events,” O’Brien said. “If they think a pig is being mistreated, they’ll be able to say to themselves, ‘I know that there’s supposed to be a rule, so I’m going to say something.’ So I think that would be a good outcome.”
The New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services collected samples of the unknown substance found in Sunapee Harbor and will be testing them tomorrow. Authorities say the spill was contained and prevented from spreading further.
HAMPSTEAD, N.H. (WHDH) – Authorities have launched an investigation after responding to a reported untimely death in Hampstead, New Hampshire, officials said.
The Attorney General’s Office is investigating the untimely death of a woman at a home in Hampstead, Attorney General John M. Formella announced.
While the investigation is just beginning, there is no known threat to the general public at this time.
The exact circumstances surrounding this incident remain under active investigation.
Advertisement
This is a developing news story; stay with 7NEWS on-air and online for the latest details.
(Copyright (c) 2026 Sunbeam Television. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
Join our Newsletter for the latest news right to your inbox
