Spotlight on Volunteers: Dr. Jim Tucci

Dr. Jim Tucci is an orthopedic surgeon who lives in West Nyack, right on the boarder of Pearl River with his wife of 27 years, Eileen, and his two youngest children, 20-year-old James and 15-year-old Christopher. 

His oldest children are the twins, 26-year-olds Michael and Kate.  His children all went through the Pearl River school system.  He practices in Pearl River at his office at 132 Central Avenue.

Dr. Tucci first began volunteering during his teenage years when he volunteered for the Catholic Youth Organization as a coach for an elementary school swim team.  He continues to volunteer his time today with his primary volunteer work as a ski instructor with the Adaptive Ski and Snowboard Program at Windham Mountain. 

The program is run by the Adaptive Sports Foundation and helps children with disabilities learn how to ski by providing them with special equipment and instruction by a group of dedicated volunteers.  Dr. Tucci has been skiing since a young age and has been using that knowledge to help these children learn how to ski for the past seven years.

What is your primary volunteer work?

The Adaptive Ski Program is probably the primary thing that I do throughout the course of the year.

How did you get involved with the Adaptive Ski and Snowboard program?

I heard about it through other friends that I see during the summer months primarily that told me about it and suggested that I give it a try.  They were suggesting it not for me, but they were suggesting it for my middle son, who is now almost 21.  During high school, he needed to put in community service hours and volunteer for school, so they were telling me about that primarily for him, that this was a good way for fulfilling your community service hours and volunteering.  My son started looking into it and he wasn’t able to drive at that time, so I had to drive up and I decided that I would do it as well.  So then the first couple of years, he and I both volunteered.

Can you describe the type of work they do and that you do for them?

The Adaptive Sports Program runs this program during the winter where they will take your children out skiing or snowboarding and then the other seasons they also run programs where they’ll take children out to teach them kayaking and sailing and other summertime sports during the other seasons.  They named it the Adaptive Sports Foundation and they are located at Windham Mountain.

During the winter, there are approximately 200 volunteers that are volunteer instructors that are involved and it usually takes two or three instructors to take a child out for the day.  They staff the foundation extensively with volunteer instructors to take the child out for day of skiing.  Many of these children do this competitively.  Some of them just come up for a day of experiencing, but many of them go up week in and week out and they learn how to ski better and better, becoming, in some situations, independent skiers, able to do it on their own without an instructor monitoring or interfering.

One weekend during the ski season, the Adaptive Sports Foundation has the Wounded Warriors Project come up and we’ll take out soldiers with various injuries skiing for that weekend.  So they come up for a Friday, Saturday, Sunday weekend-long ski trip.  The Wounded Warrior Project does this in conjunction with the Adaptive Sports Foundation.

What kinds of disabilities do these children have?

Some have physical, some emotional, some learning disabilities.  There are children with cerebral palsy and physical disabilities not allowing them to walk.  There are children with spinal cord injuries resulting in paralysis in their legs and sometimes arms.  There are children with autistic problems and the autistic child has difficulty learning this complex task of skiing, so there are those children, too.  There are children that are blind or have poor eyesight that are instructed as well.  So there are ways that all these children can learn how to ski, despite whatever physical, emotional or learning disabilities they have.

A lot of these children have the ability to actually learn how to ski, so they’ll be able to ski independently eventually and quite a few of them do.  There are even skiers that the organization has cared for that have become Paralympics or Special Olympics skiers and some of them did quite good.  A typical recreation skier couldn’t ski as well as them, so some of them become very good skiers.

What was your first experience like volunteering with the program?

That was a few years ago.  One of the first things I did was take a child down on something called a bi-ski, which is like a chair attached to two skis that a child that can’t stand uses in order to slide down the mountain.  It was a little hair-raising in that I got stuck on an area of the mountain where we slid right over the edge of the trail into some brush.  We were unscathed and she came away laughing, but the parents were right behind us, so it was a little embarrassing.

What kind of a time commitment has your volunteer work been?

We take some training at the beginning of every ski season that takes several days, somewhere between six to eight days of training and then the instructors typically volunteer a minimum of 12 days and many more than 16 days per season.

What other organizations have you been involved with?

I’ve gone on some medical missions and things like that in the past.  I haven’t been able to do that recently, but I’ve gone on the medical mission trips as an orthopedic surgeon to take care of children.  I haven’t done that in the last couple of years, but I’ve done that in the past.

Why did volunteering first become a major part of your life?

It always gave me a good feeling, a feeling of well-being to have done that.  I think that was the thing that drove me to do it.  I just had a feeling of wellness and goodness from having done it, so it’s probably given to me more than I’ve given to it.

If I’m doing things like the Adaptive, at the end of the day, the family, not just the mother and father, but the siblings of the child that are there skiing on the mountain that day, they’re so enthusiastic and appreciative and you get to see the child that’s had some sort of physical or emotional or both types of disabilities interact with their family as if they had no disability.

Because we do this and take the children out skiing, they can interact with their family the way my kids got to interact with each other on the mountain and play and enjoy themselves the way everyone else does.  That gives you a great feeling and it’s just heartwarming to see that. 

What is it about volunteering that keeps you continuing to do so?

Every season, I’m struck by more of the stories and more of the behavior of families taking their child to the mountains to ski.  It’s just touching to see how these children are loved by their families and how these children love their families and I’m just glad that I can get out there and help them as a family get out and enjoy those things.

My family all skied and it’s one of the few things that my family was able to do together.  If they played basketball or went to swim meets or soccer games, maybe you watched them or you were a coach of them, but skiing is the one activity that my whole family was able to do together.  I love when I help other families get to do it together with their child that needs help.

What has volunteering given you?

In my occupation, I take care of children with their orthopedic problems and I look at them differently when I’m volunteering than the way I appreciate them when I’m their doctor.  The volunteering gives me a better appreciation of them as human beings and complex people, whereas when I’m at work, I think of them more mechanically, because I’m an orthopedic surgeon.  I think of how I can cut this and that and perform this operation to correct their problem.

When I volunteer, I think of them more like people in the complex family structure than when I’m at work and I’m thinking of them more mechanically.  So I think what’s happened over the years is I’ve interacted with patients differently knowing what they’re like when they’re not my patient and they’re out there in the real world doing things like skiing.  That’s one of the main things and a sense of well being from having done it.

Would you describe to me your best or most meaningful memory as a volunteer?

It was sometime this last season.  There was a girl I took out and she had down syndrome and she was barely able to ski.  She had skied one day each season for the past couple of years, but she was very hesitant to try something new.  It’s a challenge to get a disabled child to give up something in the way they do a complex task, but myself and the instructor, we did it and we got her to be independent enough so that she was able to ski just about on her own, with us watching and supervising her. 

At the end of the day, this 12-year-old girl with down syndrome, she said something to me after we had stopped skiing that day.  I didn’t hear her at first, so I said, “What honey, what did you say?” And she goes, “Are you proud of me?” 

It almost made me cry and she gave me hug and I said, “Yes I am, I’m very proud of you.”  She was doing it to try to please me and it was just heartwarming to see that.

What advice would you give to someone  who is interested in getting involved, but hasn’t yet begun to volunteer their time?

I think to tell them that they’re going to wind up, if they volunteer doing something that they enjoy, by volunteering you will get out of it much more than you put into it.  You’ll just be tickled pink to be able to effect and help someone that needs your assistance. So if it’s something that you can do, get out and volunteer, then you’ll get way more out of it than you would without.

What’s the best way to get involved with your organization?

They have a website.  It’s www.adaptivesportsfoundation.org/.  On their website, there’s a way of contacting them and volunteering, and then you have to actually apply to it and be a good skier and pass some elementary examinations to be allowed to do it.

Know a volunteer who deserves some recognition and would be willing to be interviewed about their work?

Please contact Sam Schaeffer using the “email the author” button at the top of the article.