You’ve often heard and read about Clean the World’s accomplishment of distributing more than 9 million bars of soap and more than 6.2 million bottled amenities in the United States, Canada and in more than 45 other countries.

But where do the soaps, shampoos, conditioners, lotions and gels ultimately go? You may be surprised to learn the answer.

Clean the World successfully works with more than 1,200 hotel partners to collect and recycle hotel soaps for distribution to children and families in need. What you may not know is that Clean the World also encourages and receives a substantial number of donations from schools, church groups, corporations, community organizations, and individuals with a shared goal of helping others stop the spread of preventable disease with soap.

And many of these items go to domestic homeless shelters, rescue missions, women’s shelters and children’s charities that have expressed a need and desire for hygiene items to comfort those in their care. [Note: If you know of an organization in need of hygiene supplies, please click here to request relief help from Clean the World.]

Since its founding in February 2009, Clean the World has distributed 1,042,917 lbs. of soap and 581,754 lbs. of shampoos, conditioners, lotions and gels to people in need.

More recently, Clean the World delivered 2,500 hygiene kits to communities in the Dominican Republic through an organization called FUNDHUBA, a D.R.-based non-profit that works in rural areas promoting hygiene issues. The kits, which contain soaps and bottled amenities, are wrapped in reusable PeopleTowels that were donated specifically for distribution to children and families overseas. Another 4,000 kits will be shipped to Haiti this week, with plans to send thousands more to Honduras and, possibly, Guatemala and Nicaragua in the near future.

Earlier this year, Clean the World formed a special partnership with Harvest Time International. Each week Harvest Time picks up a semi-truck of sanitized bottled amenities and re-distributes them to domestic homeless shelters and other non-profits across the Caribbean and Latin America.

Clean the World has also been involved in major worldwide relief efforts. More than 2 million bars of soap have been distributed in Haiti, most of it through a series of soap distribution trips following the Jan. 2010 earthquake and subsequent cholera outbreak. But Haiti is not the only beneficiary of such generosity on the part of our partners and supporters. Through a series of additional distribution partnerships, Clean the World delivered hygiene kits, soaps, bottled amenities and bottled water to victims of the tornadoes in Joplin, Mo., and earthquake and tsunami victims in Japan, Pakistan and the Philippines.

In the United States and Canada, Clean the World frequently donates soaps and hygiene-related items to The Salvation Army, Las Vegas Rescue Mission, New Missions, Fresh Start Ministries, Opportunity House, Bronx Neighborhood Cluster Program and many more deserving organizations that have requested hygiene items from Clean the World.

This Christmas season, as we did last year, we will work with our friends at Project Shoebox and many other church groups across the United States to deliver much needed hygiene products in shoeboxes for those hurting right here at home.

You can help, too. If you know of any organizations that can benefit from receiving soaps and bottled amenities from Clean the World, please visit our website and let us know. We are the leaders of a global hygiene revolution, but we will not overlook those who are struggling in our own backyard. Soap saves lives, and it all starts with passion and a willingness to help others. Thanks for helping Clean the World.