Top pro snowboarders Jussi Oksanen and Jarkko Henttonen will let their boards to be borrowed in an internet based community service, www.kuinoma.fi – The revenue will be donated to the charity association “Mano a Mano”.

Anyone can now borrow top special boards of Henttonen and Oksanen through Finnish community based site www.kuinoma.fi

The founder of the site , Markku Jussila, states: “Kuinoma.fi will help the culture of renting/borrowing equipment rather than buying it and tries to create a new type of community based and ecologically sustainable consumption culture. People still have lots of prejudices against renting/borrowing. The example of (role-model) guys like Jarkko Henttonen and Jussi Oksanen will probably make many people to evaluate their own consumption behavior and opinions about this kind of services. The members of the community are really grateful for their liberality and of course for the sharing of the top notch snowboards for anyone to use!”

“In the group of professional and active riders borrowing gear to another ones is pretty usual. It is great to spread this common habit to the more recreational riders too”, Jarkko Henttonen says.

“To borrow my boards sounded like a really good idea. We can this way give a little bit back of all that good snowboarding has brought to us. “I try to follow similar ecological principles on my other projects too”, Jussi Oksanen follows.

Jussi in Method TV’s profile clip

According to Henttonen – who is currently working for Freeride World Tour and Freeride World Qualifier events as a judge – one could even state that renting and borrowing gear has had a significant effect on his riding career: “When I was a beginner everyone rented his/her board. Snowboarding is a very important thing in my life – I kind of feel that my duty is to borrow my boards. So that other people can easily get into the great feeling snowboarding offers.”

Profit from the renting/borrowing of the boards will go to charity

All the profit gained from the renting will be given to the “Mano a Mano” association. Mano a Mano is a Finnish association founded in 2002 . The association donates mostly to Nepal, where it helps e.g. the life of 30 children living in an orphan home.

Artturi Kröger, the Chairman of Mano a Mano, tells: “Mano a Mano works as a link between the people who want to help and the actual charity target. From every one euro collected we can guarantee 0,9€ to be used on location for real help – and this is only possible with the help of local people in Nepal”.

Jarkko Henttonen – Pioneer of Finnish freeriding and extreme snowboarding

• Still active 38-old Henttonens has e.g. the following merits:
• 2nd in the highly ranked Verbier Xtreme competition
• Second snowboarder in the world to ride the Messner Couloir in Denali (Mount McKinley), Alaska
• First Finnish snowboarder to ride the extremely challenging north face of Aguille du Midi in Chamonix,
• Ranked second in the list of best Finnish freeriders in 1999 (evaluated by the Finnish ski magazine Skimbaaja) and only topped by the Olympic gold medal mogul skier, Janne Lahtela

Jussi Oksanen – one of the best Finnish freestyle/all-around snowboarders

• Only Finnish snowboarder to win both(!) X-Games and US Open
• Burton pro model eight years in a row
• Manages his own Mizu brand that has strong ecological principles (http://www.mizulife.com)

We wish the guys and kuinoma.com a lot of success!