Gently-Used Hotel Soap Repackaged For Haiti

< Previous | Home | Next >

Gently-used hotel soap is repackaged here in Florida to save lives in Hait;

CAP-HAITIEN: Dirty, violent, and depressed.

along the North Coast of Haiti, is the poorest city in the Western Hemisphere.

There's no government presence.

Garbage is everywhere, and filth-filled canals are the norm.
Bacteria fester in the water supply.

So, it's no surprise that when a box full of supplies to improve health arrives, it gets torn apart within seconds.

But it's not always food or medicine in that box. This time, it's a shipment of soap, from an idea that started in Orlando.

A couple of frequent travelers noticed the amount of soap leftover in hotel bathrooms.

Typically, millions of used bars are thrown away every day. Until now.
It's a simple concept.

Gently-used hotel soap is repackaged here in Florida to save lives in Haiti.

It's the mission behind a new non-profit called "Clean the World".

At the helm of Clean the World, are Shawn Seipler and Paul Till.
"Acute respiratory illness is the number three killer worldwide.

Diarrheal illness the number five killer worldwide.

They kill 5 million children every year," says Seipler.

"Simple hand-washing with a bar of soap would dramatically reduce the cases of these diseases," adds Till.
So, Clean The World collects used soap, shaves off the debris, melts it down if necessary and re-wraps it. Otherwise, imagine how much perfectly good soap would get thrown away."Estimates are: hundreds of thousands of tons. Think about that. I can't even extrapolate that in my mind. Hundreds.

Of Thousands.

Of tons. Daily!" submits Till.The soap is then transported, flown over the warm Caribbean waters onto an island mired in chronic danger.

Getting through customs in Haiti can take some time. After all, this cargo is valuable.

"Soap is very expensive.

Priced out of most people's ability to purchase," says Seipler.

After a tense 90 minutes, the soap gets through, and the distribution begins.

"There's a problem with sanitation in Haiti," says the truck driver carrying the shipment of soap.
His point is proven at an orphanage, where children wash off with God-only-knows what's in that water.

"The lack of hygiene takes so many lives around the world, and here in Haiti," says William Lowry, who's helping to distribute the soap.
But with the gift of soap from Clean The World, the children bask in the cleanliness of it all. They even know proper hand washing technique.

When the soap reaches it final destination, more than 10,000 Haitians have shown up with nothing more than a promise that a special delivery has been made. Pleas for compassion are amplified.

"I have five children, all of them barely alive.

This one as you can see is really sick," says one. "I lost two children," says another.

"I birthed 4 children.

All four died from hygiene problems," yet another adds.
The bars of soap are delivered amid the chaos where there are far too many people for the limited supply.

But they understand that more is to come.
Soap for one night at a hotel, could last two weeks in a Haitian household.

"It's simply a no-brainer," says Seipler.

"We receive help. We use that help so that we can become helpers ourselves," says one recipient of the soap.
And where there's help, there's hope. Eighty hotels in Central Florida have signed on with Clean The World.

Other big hotel names in New York City and Las Vegas are also onboard.

Bayo, August 11 2009, 2:26 PM

Start a NEW topic or,
Jump to previous | Next Topic >

< Previous | Home | Next >

< Previous | Home | Next >