Waste diversion efforts in Summit County have extended the life of the local landfill by a couple decades. A Breckenridge entrepreneur’s nonprofit concept could add a few more years to its lifespan while helping to bring warm clothes to people who need it. 

Drew Roberts started his professional career in Breckenridge in lodging during 2022, where he noticed guests left a lot of clothes and other items. Often, Roberts found that staff couldn’t identify an owner for the item, or that previous owners even didn’t want the items sent back to them.  He said they could bring these clothes to the thrift stores through the Family and Intercultural Resource Center, but those closed. 

Roberts said a tremendous number of jackets were left behind, alongside hats, scarves, boots and items like curling iron and chargers. He called around to nonprofits and other organizations and learned none of them had the capacity to take the volume of donations he had.

“I was thinking, ‘What are we going to do with all of this now?'” he said. 

So, he reached out to the Rotary Club network in Breckenridge and was eventually connected to shelters and community organizations spanning from Colorado’s Front Range up to the mountains. 

He said the need for the type of jackets and winter clothing he gathered was evident at these organizations, so he decided to up the ante. He began going to other lodging businesses in Summit. He offered to come pick up left behind items to save them from being thrown out. 

He got items from five or six lodging businesses in the area, and after the 2023-24 ski season, what would become Slopes to Hope yielded over 3,000 pounds of donations brought to shelters, churches and other community organizations. 

He said he wanted to see what this concept could do with a whole organization behind it, thinking he could expand beyond Summit County, so he started looping in lodging business from surrounding counties like Eagle. 

Recognizing the value the idea had, he ran it by the High Country Conservation Center. Staff members thought his project worked well with the Summit County Strong Future Fund grant the High Country Conservation Center helped facilitate. So, Roberts applied, and his idea went before a review committee with representation from local organizations like municipal governments and the ski areas.

“(Robert’s idea) seemed like a really good fit and a really good idea, particularly for our resort communities, where people tend to just leave stuff behind because they can afford to,” High Country Conversation Center community programs manager Christy Turner said.

Additionally, he recently received a grant from the Vail Edwards Rotary Club to be able to do more work in that area. 

He said staff members of youth mentorship nonprofit SOS Outreach, which operates in both Summit and Eagle counties, identified a need for donated items like coats, and the two organizations are working on a partnership. He said he would like to bring several organizations together in this effort and is shooting for collecting 10,000 pounds of donations for the 2025-26 ski season, which will be Slopes to Hopes first as an official nonprofit. He said he would also like to see the nonprofit expand to other ski communities similarly dealing with items left behind by visitors. 

So far in 2025, he said he’s been able to take around 630 pounds of clothes to one shelter in Denver alone. 

Roberts plans to get a storage unit for the organization by mid-November to ramp things up by Dec. 1. Those interested in partnering with Slopes to Hope can contact Roberts at drew@slopestohope.com. More information can be found at SlopesToHope.com.