This week is a special one for United States Olympians! Today, Olympians and Paralympians from the 2014 Winter Olympics will meet President and First Lady Obama. Then they will kick off the Post-Olympic and Paralympic Athlete Summit.
While we have enjoyed supporting the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) and their programs for some time now, more recently, we were excited to partner with them on a very important program – The Athlete Career Program (ACP), which promotes athlete empowerment through education. This week’s Post-Olympic and Paralympic Athlete Summit is being held as part of the overall initiatives of the ACP, and has the goal of assisting athletes as they retire from competitive sport. This year’s summit will be held in Washington, D.C., April 3-5 and will feature multiple workshops and sessions designed to provide critical career counseling and employment networking for Team USA.
Kathy Johnson Clarke, one of our Champion Ambassadors, will attend the conference as a panelist sharing her own experiences of retiring from competitive sport and entering the non-profit world. David Ulich, executive board member for GSD, states, “Empowering athletes to succeed on and off the field is something we wholeheartedly support and together with the USOC and other dedicated sponsors, we can open new doors for elite athletes.”
This three-day event will group workshops, athlete panels, and breakout sessions. Some of the topics include:
- Building Credit & Responsible Borrowing
- Paying for Education
- Understand & Using Social Media
- How to Manage Competing & Transitioning
By providing opportunities such as the Post-Olympic and Paralympic Athlete Summit, we are supporting the whole well-being of athletes. Our hope is that many of these Olympians will discover new strengths and ways to give back to their communities.
