Clear Channel Outdoor gives their employees one day a year to dedicate to volunteering for something in the community. Since the Orlando Branch is one big family, we decided to do it together and found an organization we could all get our hands dirty, er, I mean clean, with.
Clean the World is a local organization that helps children and families around the globe by providing soap to help keep them from contracting diseases such as pneumonia and diarrhea. Both, of course, can occur from different reasons, but in third world countries the act of washing hands can reduce death from these diseases by 50% (and there are 2 million people who die each year from diarrheal diseases). And in the United States, did you know that soap is not on the food stamps list?
Founded in 2009, the organization works with hotels around the world to collect the used soap each day in order to sanitize and re-process them into new bars to then distribute. It is a 501(c)3 that looks to the help of clubs, companies, and other philanthropic organizations to help separate and sort the soap and create the hygiene kits that are then given to people in need.
So if your company or organization is looking for a team-building exercise to rally around, think about volunteering and form an assembly line for good. CCO-Orlando actually helped Clean the World figure out a more efficient way to store the hygiene kits in boxes through the type-A personality of our fearless leader. We were also able to create more than 1,500 hygiene kits, assembled more than 1,000 boxes to put them in, and sorted 25,000 bottles and 27,000 bars of soap. And we know that the hygiene kits will be going to families in our own backyard of Seminole County who need them desperately.
All in a day’s work.
PS – I then went to my favorite vegan convenience store (okay, the only vegan convenience store I know about), Artichoke Red, and they carry a soap there that supports Clean the World. Guess what shampoo and conditioner this Media Nerd is going to buy next?
Patti is still learning 