BENNINGTON, New Hampshire ??” Skiers and snowboarders will be taking to the slopes of Crotched Mountain this Saturday for 24 hours straight to benefit Nobody’s Children, a NH-based international children’s charity working for the past 12 years helping the orphans of Romania and Bosnia.

Nobody’s Children was founded in 1991 by Edward and Elaine Yourtee after experiences in Romania while adopting their son Jonathan. Moved by the plight of orphans in Romania, they organized their friends to make a limited contribution to improve the conditions they had seen. They also sought to leverage their efforts by working directly with Romanian doctors to improve their abilities to care for children. When a key volunteer from Romania moved to work in Bosnia, opportunities arose to help children from all factions who were left homeless by war.

“We’re just so excited to be hosted by Crotched in Southern New Hampshire this year because that’s where the snow is”, remarked Elaine Yourtee during a recent telephone conversation.

“The mountain is open until 3am anyway, much later than any other ski area in the region. Taking the next step and running 24-hours is easy for us, especially in support of such a great cause”, said Chris Bradford of Crotched Mountain.

Participants must obtain pledges from family, friends, neighbors and co-workers to benefit Nobody’s Children with a minimum $125 needed to participate. The ski-a-thon is not based on pledging for a high number of runs, rather, it is a simple gift for completing the task at hand. Participants are required to take mandatory rest periods and are fed nutritious meals around the clock to keep energy levels up. Prizes will be raffled every hour and everyone is encouraged to have a safe and enjoyable time.

Crotched Mountain, located just 23 miles from Manchester, NH, is a new ski facility built on the site of a former ski area bearing the same name. Opened just in time for the 2003-2004 ski season, the new ski area features a brand new 40,000 sq. ft. spacious base lodge, new high-performance rental equipment, 5 new lifts and state-of-the-art snowmaking technology.

The Nobody’s Children ski-a-thon is also endorsed and supported by skiing icon Dan Egan, SkiClinics.com[/url], and Crotched Mountain. For more information and sign-up forms, please visit www.nobodyschildren.org.