Guy Gadomski and his wife live in the Summit County home his parents used to own. The full-time Summit resident’s mother and father split time between the mountains of Colorado and the flatlands of Indianapolis, but as they aged, they wanted to do so in Summit County.

As they got older, Gadomski’s parents could no longer ski, hike and do the activities that originally attracted them to the mountains. Despite that, they wanted to be in Colorado because they had built a community with their friends and neighbors.

“I’m that way now,” Gadomski, 69, said. “I couldn’t imagine living somewhere else. This is it.”

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Gadomski’s late parents both had health issues toward the end of their lives that prevented them from staying in Summit County. Seeing his parents and many others he has known through the years have to leave their community has made Gadomski passionate about helping people stay in Colorado’s mountains. 

The retired engineer and former-CPA now serves as the treasurer for Staying in Summit, an organization dedicated to making it easier to age in place in the county.

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Activism aims to make aging in place easier

Staying in Summit organized in 2018 and has since looked to assist in the creation of a “senior living community” that have many of the housing and care services aging adults need in one place. The community could include things like independent and assisted living, a nursing home, rehab beds, housing for the staff that would work there and more.

Gadomski said in the past, it was more common for older people in Summit County to move to the mountains for recreational opportunities while having family and friends elsewhere. He said those sort of adults would plan to spend a few years in the mountains but move back where they came from once they could no longer ski or needed long-term care services.

“I think more and more now, people that are here are people that have been here,” Gadomski said. “Many of the seniors that are here now have been here for 30 years, and this is where their family is, this is where their businesses are, this is where their friends are.”

Staying in Summit believes a senior living community would provide a better continuum of care for aging adults who want to stay in the county. The nonprofit has worked to identify suitable parcels of land, developers and other partners, though Gadomski said the project may not be completed all at once if opportunities arise for smaller projects.

“It could be a rehab of an existing structure, a hotel, for example,” Gadomski said. “The idea in our mind … would be where you had a large enough piece of acreage that you could have the entire continuum of care in one location.”

Stacy Starr, the executive director of Mountain Family Center in Grand County, wrote in an email that community advocacy makes a difference in improving care for aging adults. Advocacy in Grand County has brought attention to related issues and resulted in “expanded conversations” around senior services, food access and transportation.

Community partnerships, Starr wrote, especially help advance aging adults’ interests in areas like health, housing and human services.

“Even small changes — like improving coordination between nonprofits, healthcare providers, and local government — can significantly improve access to services for seniors,” Starr wrote.

Staying in Summit and the Summit County government have discussed a partnership through the possibility of including a senior living community on a parcel of land known as Lake Hill. The county purchased Lake Hill, a nearly 45-acre space along the Dillon Dam Road, from the U.S. Forest Service, in 2017, with the intention to build housing on the land. 

Development at Lake Hill has not begun, and Summit County Commissioner Tamara Pogue said the county has faced challenges building affordable housing on the property because it lacks infrastructure like water and sewer systems or roads. She said the horizontal infrastructure for a Lake Hill project would likely cost $20 to $40 million.

“Summit County collects $8 million annually for affordable housing,” Pogue said. “It would take us many years just to make the spot suitable to build. Does that mean we shouldn’t do it, or we can’t do it? No, but it does make it very difficult.”

Wendy Timm, a member of Staying in Summit’s advisory board, said the nonprofit is “moving on” from Lake Hill. She said the group does not feel it can wait any longer for the challenges of building at the site to be figured out.

“We’re a good 10 years behind in satisfying demand here because it’s such an exponential growth (in the senior population),” Timm said.

Pogue said the county wants to support Staying in Summit’s efforts, even as it turns its focus away from the Lake Hill property. Whether the nonprofit’s next move is locating another potentially suitable parcel or something else, like the hotel conversion idea Gadomski mentioned, Pogue said the county would like to be involved in the conversation.

“We feel this is an important conversation that needs to continue,” Pogue said.

In addition to its work searching for suitable land, Staying in Summit works to increase awareness of the aging population’s needs. Gadomski helped organize a committee with representatives of organizations involved in senior support and care.

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“I needed to understand their perspective on what’s needed in the county,” Gadomski said. “We needed to collaborate on this effort.”

The committee started having meetings last year, Gadomski said, and it includes Summit 50 Plus, CommonSpirit, Elevated Community Health, Vail Health, Vintage, Bristlecone Home Health & Hospice, Lenka’s Loving Care, the Summit County Community and Senior Center and Timberline Adult Day Program.

Starr wrote that collaboration among aging-related organizations can be especially impactful in rural areas where resources are limited. Partnerships allow organizations to share resources, avoid duplicating services and reach more people, Starr wrote. 

Programs that help aging adults access food, health care, transportation and caregiver support are among those that can be expanded through collaboration, according to Starr. She added that organizations can also combine efforts to more effectively seek out federal and state funding.

“Ultimately, collaboration allows us to build a stronger support system for seniors across the region,” Starr wrote.

Although Summit County has faced financial challenges at Lake Hill, it supports the aging population in many other ways.

Lorie Williams, the manager of the Summit County Community and Senior Center, said the county provides many other services through the center. It runs the local Meals on Wheels, hosts community meals with Summit 50 Plus, has a medical transportation program, handles veteran services, provides Medicare counseling, delivers “blizzard boxes” and runs a program called Neighbors Helping Neighbors.

Home modification helps ease lack of senior facilities in Summit

Blizzard boxes contain nonparishable food, and Lorie Williams said the center provides them to aging adults who normally have their meals delivered, in case snow prevents drivers from making deliveries. The neighbors helping neighbors program manages volunteers who help aging adults with small tasks like taking out their trash, Lorie Williams said.

“Our volunteers really support us in a huge way,” Lorie Williams said. “We had over 10,000 hours in volunteer hours (last year).”

The Grand County Public Health Department has free senior lunches, a meal voucher program for those 60 and older and a meal home-delivery program called Mom’s Meals. Abbie Baker, the department’s executive director, wrote in an email that the county pays for four meals per week for lower-income individuals who are 60 and older through the Mom’s Meals program.

The public health department also offers nonmedical, in-home care for those in need, Baker wrote, and it spends about $340,000 annually on its nutrition and home care programs.

Community involvement and support

Jayne Meiners is in her early 50s and has lived in Breckenridge full time for several years, although she started as a part-time resident nearly 20 years ago. She sits on the Summit 50 Plus board and got involved with the organization about a year ago.

“I joined last year, mainly because I saw some of the activities that were advertised in the Summit Daily,” Meiners said.

Joining Summit 50 Plus allowed Meiners to interact with more retirement-age people, as well as what she calls “bridgers,” or those nearing the end of their working life and transitioning to retirement. 

Although she had researched the “do’s and don’ts” of aging in Summit County before joining the organization, Meiners said the new relationships she made through Summit 50 Plus helped her verify what she had found and learn about what she had not.

“Some things I’ve encountered myself — not being able to get certain types of care off here and having to go down to Denver,” Meiners said. “Certain things are just talked (about) a lot more in Summit 50 plus, just part of the everyday conversation.”

While Summit 50 Plus accepts members of any age, younger people can also connect with aging adults in their community by volunteering for the organization. President Philip Mervis first got involved with the program by volunteering, and he said Summit 50 Plus uses lots of volunteers for events like its community dinners. He also mentioned that the county’s medical transport and Meals on Wheels programs use volunteer labor.

In Grand County, Starr wrote, volunteers can help the aging population through “food distribution, transportation assistance, wellness checks and programs that reduce social isolation.” No matter how large or small a volunteer effort may be, Starr wrote, they make a “meaningful difference” in creating an environment in which people can age in place.

“Volunteers are a vital part of ensuring that seniors feel connected, supported and valued,” Starr wrote.

Dr. Briony Catlow, the director of the University of Denver’s Knoebel Institute for Healthy Aging, said volunteering can also create intergenerational connections. She said those connections help limit social isolation for everyone involved and added that younger generations can learn from the experience of older ones.

Organizations eye improvements

Mountain Family Center has several goals for 2026-2027, according to Starr, including one related to volunteering. The center uses volunteers for its social engagement and transportation programs, and Starr wrote in an email that it looks to expand those programs.

Starr wrote that the center also plans to convene stakeholders to update data, identify priority service gaps and agree on short- and long-term goals. It also will look to improve outreach to adults eligible for benefit programs, like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Medicare, and apply for targeted grants.

Other organizations and providers in Grand and Summit counties aim to improve aging adult care and support in the coming years. Officials from Grand’s Middle Park Health and Summit’s CommonSpirit and Middle Park Health said both hospital systems plan to keep adding specialties when appropriate, limiting the number of medical issues that will require aging adults to seek care elsewhere.

Elevated Community Health in Summit County is currently focusing on adding pediatric care, but community engagement manager Zach Ryan said the next addition could be geriatrics.

“We are considering the possibility of bringing on a geriatrician in the next year or two to further help with seniors who want to age in place here in Summit,” Ryan said.

Bristlecone Home Health & Hospice could add palliative care in the future, according to Jamie Geyer, Bristlecone’s clinical manager. CommonSpirit’s national health at home division oversees Bristlecone, and the national organization has palliative care at other locations, Geyer said. 

Palliative care is specialized care for people with serious illnesses. Geyer said it bridges the gap between hospice and home care, “meeting the patient where they’re at on their health care journey.” 

“We would have to see our census increase in order to increase staffing, and then subsequently add some of that more individualized palliative care,” Geyer said.

Lenka Lesmerises, owner of Summit County-based Lenka’s Loving Care, said her business is looking for ways to make its services more affordable, as it currently does not accept Medicare and occasionally has to turn clients away because they can not afford its services.

Grand County’s assisted living facility, Cliffview Assisted Living Center, is working to add an adult day program this year, according to director Karrie Sellke. She wrote that the program would allow Cliffview to increase its support for aging adults without having to add rooms through a physical expansion. 

Christine Travis, Grand County’s communications director, wrote in an email that “in an ideal world” Cliffview would expand to accommodate the county’s need for independent senior living. That “isn’t a viable option at this time,” though, as the county’s financial contribution to Cliffview has regularly increased even though occupancy has not.

“In 2025, Commissioners budgeted $800,000 — about $33,000 per resident — to cover Cliffview operations and facility maintenance,” Travis wrote.

In future years, Travis wrote, Grand County aims to increase participation in its “senior internship program.” The program allows seniors to work flexible hours doing tasks they are able to do, like indoor or outdoor painting or scanning and filing documents. The idea behind the program is to give seniors “a little extra income” if they need help with something like paying property taxes after their home’s valuation increases.

Mervis said Summit 50 Plus constantly looks to add new events and programs, taking suggestions from its membership and sometimes getting new groups started in as little as a month. Meiners said new programs often aim to attract younger participants, broadening the community at the community center.

While she knows Summit County may someday not be able to fulfill her needs as she ages, Meiners is hopeful improving services will increase her chances to age in place. She said she is especially supportive of Staying in Summit’s efforts to create a senior living community.

“Hopefully that makes progress in the coming years, and it becomes possible for people to age in place here,” Meiners said.