Inntopia Further Increases Support Of Goggles For Docs As Donations Pass 30,000

Resort ecommerce and marketing platform Inntopia continues to ramp up their support of Goggles for Docs as the effort continues to gather momentum. Goggles for Docs helps facilitate donations of new or used ski goggles to health care workers on the front line battling COVID-19 who do not yet have access to personal protection equipment. The campaign was started by Jon Schaefer, Owner and General Manager of Berkshire East Resort, and was launched with the help of Gregg Blanchard, Inntopia’s VP of Marketing on the afternoon of March 29, just under three weeks ago.

“I heard about what Jon was trying to organize and it instantly clicked that this could be something skiers could do to help,” said Blanchard. “Around noon we got on the phone while he was running some errands and talked through what we needed to get this launched. It was clear a website was top priority, so I spent that afternoon securing the domain name, building the site, and getting forms setup. By about 5pm we were live.”

Momentum quickly swelled for the initiative and donations began coming in immediately. By midday on April 3, more than 10,000 goggles had been donated. Five days later, total goggles donated passed 20,000. A week after reaching that milestone, Goggles for Docs has now connected skiers, snowboarders, gear brands, and more with hospitals in need to the tune of 30,000 total pairs of goggles.

Along the way, hundreds of volunteers offered to help. Among them, more than a dozen Inntopia employees. Many of these employees were software developers who helped Inntopia CEO, Trevor Crist, tweak the company’s booking engine - typically used by resorts to sell hotel rooms and lift tickets - to more securely and easily track donors and inventory for the 300+ hospitals who had requested goggles through the program.  

“After a week or so running the effort on a complex network of spreadsheets, we saw a way to take our platform and tweak it slightly so donors could search for hospitals in need and record their donation,” said Crist. “Instead of hotels with the number of rooms still available, visitors saw hospitals with the numbers of goggles each still needed. It’s helped immensely to streamline the process and connect skiers and riders with the right health care facilities.” 

Inntopia now has some of the support team helping volunteers vet hospitals and quickly get them added into the system.

Goggles for Docs has always earned support from dozens of other companies including Anon, Smith, Scott, U.S. Ski and Snowboard, and more. A Virtual Après Music Series facilitated by Reverb has raised thousands of dollars in additional funds that are used to purchase even more goggles at cost which are then donated to hospitals.