Hannah Teter, Snowboarding Champion

Remember the name Hannah Teter. The people of Kirindon, Kenya will.  If you have heard her name it is probably connected with women's snowboarding in the Olympic Games but it is much more than that.

Hannah Teter was born in 1987 and began snowboarding at the age of 8. She won the gold medal in halfpipe at the 2006 Winter Olympic Games in Turin, Italy.  She has won numerous competitions and by the time you read this, she will have competed in the 2010 Olympics.

Besides her snowboarding championships, Teter is also known for her philanthropy.  In 2008 she founded a charity in partnership with World Vision called Hannah's Gold which raises money through the sale of Vermont maple syrup.  The object of this project is to help the people  in a village 250 miles west of Nairobi, Kenya.  This village lacked clean drinking water and proper sanitation.  World Vision  embarked on the endeavor to reduce the diseases caused by water borne diseases (intestinal and skin) by digging fresh water wells and providing  water filtration.  In 2009, Teter donated all her prize money to the Kirindon Project.

Hannah wrote on a World Vision website: "There is a lot of work that still needs to be done in this town of 80,000 from water sanitation, to more schools, to womens' right to stop FGM (femal genital mutilation), to forced early marriages, to food crises.  We can help, we already have and will continue to do so."

Teter has also worked to raise money for Darfur. And her latest project is selling ladies' underwear called "sweet cheeks" to help Haiti.  She has a website at http://www.hannahteter.com/.

Let's hope she wins the gold medal; but if not, Hannah Teter is still a champion!