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What is Jump for Joy?

KAVU Athlete, Neil Amonson shares why his passion for skydiving has become an opportunity to inspire kids to find their path to happiness.

By KAVU

June 6^th, 2017

What is Jump for Joy, you ask? Well I’m glad you did because it’s something everyone should know about! Jump For Joy is a team of skydivers who travel the country helping to teach young people how to be happy. Yes we know that being happy isn’t such a simple thing (or is it?), and as we get older happiness sometimes becomes an elusive ghost that seems to disappear around the next corner. But here at Jump For Joy, we also know that happiness is something we already have inside us and sometimes all we need is a reminder to appreciate the gifts this universe delivers to us on a daily basis.

For this event we met with 900 students from the local elementary and middle school in Kamas, UT. It was extra fun because it was the kid's last week of school before summer break, and their excitement to soon be free from homework and tests was clearly visible in their big smiles and loud cheers.

We met the aircraft 30 minutes away at a small airport and flew back to the school where Liz, a local skydiver, had gotten the young crowd fired up for the jumpers grand entrance.

Three jumpers parachuted in from 6,500 feet.

After their parachutes opened it was easy to look down and see the football field that was the landing zone. These demos are always a fun opportunity to land a parachute away from the standard airport environment -where parachute operations usually happen.

Neil comes swooping in with the GoPro parachute....

Garren nails his accuracy landing right on the 50yd line.

Mike put on a fun and dramatic show by flying in with an American flag attached to his parachute.

After landing

....there is time for a quick high-five before diving into the most important part of the performance

....the message!

The skydive is:

....just a big trick to gets kids attention. I was a kid once and I remember how much easier it was to listen to someone I thought was cool, as opposed to someone I thought was boring. If landing a parachute on their football field doesn’t buy some cool points these days, then I don’t know what will.

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We use fun visual aids to keep the kids attention as well as to help them understand some of our teaching points. One of the student's favorite parts of the presentation is when we throw colored power.

We start off by having one of the skydivers share a goal

....or idea with the students. The jumper then throws one packet of powder in the air, representing the goal they just shared. Then we get a group of people together helping discuss how to make that goal happen. Next, they all throw up the colored powder together showing how much bigger the idea becomes by having the team work on it together

For this part of the lesson

We talk about the value of having a solid plan. No amount of dreaming is going to make your idea real. At some point, you have to get down to the "nitty gritty" details. We hold up a marble and a beach ball, each representing an “idea”, and ask the students which idea is better. They always say the beach ball because of it’s size which, is a fun teaching point to talk about the value of a small plan that is really solid and a big plan that is full of air.

The last topic we discuss

....is often the scariest part of making an idea real.. trying it! Through a series of questions and answers with students in the crowd, we talk about how to handle failure and how our jump that morning wouldn’t have happened if we let fear stop us in our tracks. We also talk about how we managed risk during the jump to ensure a safe and accurate landing.

....with conditions ideal for jumping, it was time to send the students back to class. We were still buzzing from the excitement of a successful demo jump and felt lucky to have squeezed in a performance before school gets out for summer break.

Each event

....is usually made possible by a caring parent reaching out to the school and making the introduction to Jump For Joy. In this case it was my bearded friend Mark on the right side of this picture who has a son that goes to the middle school. Big props to Mark for introducing us to the school and a big shout out to Vice Principle Dean (far left) for being an amazing host. We would love to come back next year!

Jump For Joy is a 501c3 approved non profit funded 100% through private donations. If you want to help keep this program in the air please visit:

www.jump-4-joy.org

Footnotes

We couldn’t be more proud to have Neil in the KAVU family and, to see him share his contagious belief that “anything is possible” with young people, world wide! What's your inspiration?

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FootNotes

We couldn’t be more proud to have Neil in the KAVU family and, to see him share his contagious belief that “anything is possible” with young people, world wide! What's your inspiration?

Havasupai 2025

What is Jump for Joy?

KAVU Athlete, Neil Amonson shares why his passion for skydiving has become an opportunity to inspire kids to find their path to happiness.

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