BOUNTIFUL — Nine months ago Bountiful native Nicole Roundy was struggling to find money in order to compete in adaptive snowboarding.

Now, she can dream of continuing to snowboard with her teammates in the future.

Roundy was recently awarded a grant by the Level Field Fund, a grant-giving program that provides qualified funding to uniquely talented athletes whose opportunity to pursue excellence was limited by their financial situation.

Roundy is an adaptive snowboarder due to the loss of her right leg above the knee, which came as a result of a battle with cancer at the age of eight.

Winner of the USASA Nationals World Cup and the NZ World Cup in 2009, Roundy picked up snowboarding roughly seven years after losing her leg, and hasn’t stopped snowboarding since.

The grant – supported by a founding partner named OrthoLite – will allow Roundy, who works as a sleep technician to pay for her snowboarding, and her three other teammates to remain together and compete in other competitions worldwide.

Her team, comprised of Dan Monzo, Jodie Thring and Joe Douglas, had previously been struggling to get to competitions less than one year ago.

In a previous interview with the Clipper, Roundy stated that the team was “hoping that we’d have enough funding to pay for the coaching and opportunities needed to get to the major events.”

She had also said that for adaptive athletes, “we’ve never had a budget. Everything we’ve done up to this point has been on our own pretty pennies.”

When the money wasn’t there, things turned worse for her and the team.

The loss of a sponsor all but derailed the opportunity to train, compete, and travel to other locations for tournaments across the country.

At the time, the team also set up a website for donations so that residents could help fund their training and any competitions they were looking forward too.

The website, adaptivesnowboardfund.chipin.com/competition-costs-for-disabled-snowboarders, still exists, however, the event they were raising money for ended and hasn’t been updated since Sept. 12.

The Level Field Fund so far has given 33 grants totaling more than $110,000 to several different organizations and groups representing several different sports.

The sports currently included that have received grants are skiing, snowboarding, swimming and judo.

The grant is led by a quintet of gold medalists, including Michael Phelps, Seth Wescott, Ross Powers, Daron Rahlves and Lenny Krayzelburg.

According to Level Fielding Funds’ website, their mission is to “strive to bridge gaps in funding for uniquely talented athletes, following the belief that opportunities to pursue excellence in sports should not be limited by an athlete’s financial situation.”

They have several different funding opportunities available as well, and the grants given can benefit a single athlete or an entire group.

And now, the Viewmont High School graduate will be able to compete and train without having to worry about where the money is going to come from.

Her ultimate dream still remains to qualify for the Paralympic Team and to get her sport of adaptive snowboarding into the 2014 Olympics.

To find a brief biography about Roundy, visit her website at www.nicoleroundy.com.