Welcome back to our final session of the stay warm series. If you missed our past sessions, I’d recommend starting back at Stay Warm! – Retro Respect to get caught up. We’ll be looking at Socks, Neck Tubes, and Beanies today. Before you say “oh that sounds boring!’ and pull chocks, stick with me. Outside of the warmth factor that these provide, the real story here is the opportunity to express yourself as well as benefit some really amazing causes.
Let’s start with Smartwool Ph.D. socks. These are their latest compression socks that are made from Marino Wool. The technology they employ creates 4 different compression zones in the socks to make sure the blood in your feet keeps moving, and you stay nice and toasty as a result. These also help keep the socks from bunching in the boots when you put them on. Among their Ph.D. like of socks are the ones that benefit Protect Our Winters or P.O.W. For each pair that is purchased, Smart wool will donate $1 to the P.O.W.
Protect Our Winters was founded by Teton Gravity’s pro snowboarder Jeremy Jones. Using his influence in the industry, they are challenging the entire snow sports industry and all industries to reduce, recycle, reuse, and adopt green energy like solar panels in hopes to help slow the costly impacts of global climate change. They have been instrumental getting many of the communities in the mountains to commit to 100% renewable. Among them is Breckenridge, Colorado that passed by city council this past fall to meet this stringent standard by 2035. Councilwoman, Erin Gigliello, posted on facebook “So proud to work on a Council that came together to vote 7-0 on a resolution for 100% renewable energy by 2035. Also, it’s so cool that in Breck, pro athletes come to Council meetings! Thank you to all the citizens and staff that helped make this possible!” This puts Breckenridge in good company alongside other progressive Colorado towns of Aspen, Boulder, Nederland, and Pueblo.
Speaking of recycled and reuse, the next company to call attention to is Denver’s own Phunkshun wear. Founded in 2011 under the leadership of CEO Jason Badgley, Phunkshun wear takes recycled water bottles and breaks them down into a fabric that is used to make neck gaiters or neck tubes. These come in 3 different weights so you can pick and chose based on the outside temperature. The team uses an incredibly clean process that has zero wastewater pollution, and any scrap fabric from the process is processed back through as to keep the remaining material from hitting the landfill. At present, they have achieved 79% and are continuing to push for better success. The next step is to make the ink that they use from Epson to be environmentally cleaner. If this wasn’t enough for you to be convinced of the good juju of this company, the company donates 5 cents to the High Fives organization.
High Fives was founded in 2009 under the leadership of Roy Tuscany in Truckee, CA. The organization mission is to raise injury prevention awareness while providing resources and inspiration to those that suffer life-altering injuries. Roy himself was paralyzed in an unfortunate injury when he overshot the landing of his jump. The high five has 3 different programs. These are Empowerment, C.R. Johnson Healing Center, and Being Aware Safe in Critical Situations. (B.A.S.I.C.S.). Empowerment focuses on the patient side of recovery through providing funds for living expenses, insurance, health, travel, high fives healing network, adaptive equipment, winter equipment and “stoke” (positive energy, outlook, and attitude). The C.R. Johnson Healing Center in provides a no questions asked facility and education for various healing techniques including yoga, TRX, Strength training, and acupuncture is backed by Craig Hospital in Denver, which unto itself is the world-renowned location for recovery. Finally, the B.A.S.I.C.S. program looks at the education side to prevent any future injuries to budding athletes.
Our next product from Beyond Beanies addresses poverty and hunger head-on. Beyond Beanies was founded in 2014 under the leadership of Hector Alvarez and Paty Lucero. This company started with the simple idea of to putting Bolivia Artisans to work and feed children in South America through a make one, buy one, give many model. The sales of beanies, provide 5 meals! So far, this model is successfully feeding, clothing, dental, and school supplies for 100 children at the Amanacer Salomon Klein center in Punata, Bolivia.
As you can see, the snow sports industry has some real gems of companies that have a philanthropic side to them. Whether you are trying to keep your feet dry, head warm, or just protect your face, you can express yourself both in a fashion sense and a values sense. As we wrap up this series, please send us any question or comments that you might have about these articles below. We’d love to hear from you!!
We will start our New Year with a brand new series on the various equipment that you’ll face with snowsports. We’ll cover everything from snow boots to Fat bikes, so be sure to tune in for that.
Until then, Pray for Snow and Celebrate when Ullr Provides!
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