Please help Dani get to the U.S Olympic training site in Colorado for training

Hi, my name is Danielle (Dani) Gebser, I'm 16 and I live in Auckland, New Zealand. My life has revolved around figure skating ever since I was 6 years old when my mum took me to the local ice rink for a skate. I don't remember the day when I put on skates and stepped out onto the ice for the first time, but my mum always said that "She ran in shoes off the ice, got on the ice with skates and ran as if there was no difference".

This coming April, in 2019 I have been offered a fantastic opportunity to go to Colorado in America for a month to train at the Colorado World Arena Ice Hall with multiple other skaters. This is a U.S Olympic training site where top-level figure skaters from all around the world go to train in order to make use of the world-class coaching and training equipment this site offers.

This training will assist me with one of my major goals which is to qualify and represent New Zealand in one of the Junior Grand Prix Series competitions that take place from August to October and are located in different countries all around the world. In order to qualify for this event I need to be the best I can possibly be and the training in America would assist greatly in ensuring I continue to develop and improve so that I can be just that.

This is my first opportunity for international training and I would love to fulfill it. Although a trip like this doesn't come without its costs. My parents and family have had to make a lot of financial sacrifices in order to support my passion for figure skating for many years and continue to work their hardest to allow me to continue to skate, get the ice time, transport, coaching and care needed, and for this, I am extremely grateful. I know that they would love to be able to pay the costs of this trip in full and guarantee me this opportunity, but that isn't feasible. This is why if anyone were to be generous enough to financially assist in allowing this dream to come true, I would be extremely and forever thankful. This trip consists of travel expenses, ice-time, admission fees, coaching fees, accommodation, as well as other expenses and any assistance received would be a massive help in being one step closer to this dream coming true.

To give you an understanding of the level that I am at in my skating, these are some of my achievements so far:

I skate in the Junior Ladies division and since my family returned to Auckland in 2017 I have started to represent my home country, New Zealand. Prior to this I was located in Sydney, Australia and was a NSW State Champion for 3 consecutive years as well as having a placement in the Australian National squad and medalling at 3 Australian Figure Skating National Championships. All the competitions I have completed so far have been in New Zealand and Australia, but with this training opportunity, I hope I am able to compete in the international circuit.

The last, nearly 10 years that I have spent figure skating have not been a smooth, easy ride. In fact, it has been quite the opposite, with numerous different short term and long term injuries, some lasting for years and continuing to be prominent in day to day training, as well as a lot of frequent blood, sweat and tears. Although my passion for this sport has driven me to try and heal my injuries as quickly as possible, strengthen my body so I don't develop more or worsen injuries and push through the pain and battles during training to come through successfully on competition day.

I currently am completing my high school education through correspondence education (online school) in order to enable me to balance my skating as well as education. With this I am able to get the ice time needed and can train on the ice 6 days a week, from 2 to 4 hours a day, coming to over 20 hours a week. I also do over 10 hours of off-ice training a week to build up my strength and skill to continue developing for my on-ice performance. Both my sport and education are highly important to me and this method of schooling allows me to be dedicated to not one or the other, but both. Attending online education would make this opportunity even greater as I would be able to dedicate most of my energy solely to skating during the time I am in America to get the most out of this trip.

This fantastic opportunity to go and train in America would help enormously in fulfilling my short and long term goals in a sport I have such a deep passion for and have dedicated so much of not only my time, energy and effort into but also my parents and others apart of my journey. So I ask if you could possibly be generous enough to contribute to making this trip happen, I would be so grateful.

Thank you for taking your time to read this, and considering to help me on my figure skating journey, as every little bit helps.