Delivering Hygiene Kits with Lenovo
Clean the World’s mission to save millions of lives worldwide could not be done without excellent partners like Lenovo. Over the past two years, the team at Lenovo has assembled 17,750 hygiene kits that have been donated to charities that fight hunger, homelessness, provide youth services, and many others.
Through Clean the World’s Hygiene Kit Program, corporate partners like Lenovo have teamed up with Clean the World to distribute hygiene kits to individuals living in poverty or families displaced from their homes due to natural disasters since 2013.
Clean the World’s Hygiene Kit Program, which focuses on in-person hygiene kit builds, would set the foundation for our newest product, Soap Save Lives Boxes, which focuses on remote assembly of hygiene kits. Together both programs have generated a total distribution of 5 million hygiene kits nationwide.
The Pivot – Adapting to Change
In March 2020, the COVID-19 outbreak caused major shutdowns across the country. However, with most people working from home, individuals still wanted a way to give back, especially when there was a heavy emphasis on the importance of hygiene health. Corporations like Lenovo quickly got involved because it was a safe way to empower their employees to help communities in need, particularly when the world was being instructed to stay home.
In response to the high demand, Clean the World adjusted its existing hygiene kit program and started packing the supplies needed to build 100 kits into single cardboard boxes. The program’s initial response was a success, with volunteers from Sands helping us build 20,000 kits within 48 hours. After that, its popularity multiplied, and soon Clean the World found itself receiving messages from people requesting boxes to assemble kits of their own.
This demand resulted in creating the Soap Saves Lives Box program, which gives individuals and corporations a safe way to support the charities dearest to their hearts without leaving the comfort of their homes. The program has plans to expand internationally and now includes the option to assemble school kits for children suffering from economic hardship.
Where the Impact Goes
Lenovo has distributed 17,750 hygiene kits through our Soap Saves Lives Box program in the last two years. Their hygiene kit builds have engaged their employees and their families, totaling 355 employee volunteers across 27 states.
This past September, Lenovo employees assembled 2,500 kits for Next Door Solutions as part of Lenovo’s Global Month of Service (GMOS). Lenovo’s GMOS event is a yearly initiative that seeks to engage their employees to empower individuals with limited access to technology and STEM Education in the communities where they live and work. In addition, the hygiene kits will help domestic violence survivors and families move out of crisis and violence and into safety, stability, and self-sufficiency.
Last year’s Global Month of Service (2020) engaged volunteers across 12 states to assemble and distribute 2,750 kits. Last year was the first year that volunteers participated in a virtual context to improve the quality of life for vulnerable communities. Lenovo then donated the kits to help Inter-Faith Food Shuttle, Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, Project Renewal, and Shepherd’s Hope (The Center of Englewood).
“My family really had a great time doing that, and it lead to some great conversations on why the kits were needed in the first place,” said Lenovo employee, Jenny.
This year, in support of their annual kickoff event, Lenovo gathered over 500 employees, friends, and family members to assemble 12,500 kits. The charities’ initiatives vary across services, including fighting hunger, ending homelessness, providing youth services, and many others.
Our Impact
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Clean the World, in partnership with corporations, employees, families, friends across the country, have distributed over 400,000 Soap Saves Lives Box hygiene kits to people in need in the US. During the pandemic, 9 million bars of soap were distributed in the US and around the world.
The program helps support our Foundation’s domestic program like the Fresh Start WASH and Wellness program and our WASH Stations.
Our Fresh Start WASH and Wellness program combines WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene) Education and wellness services in a traveling hygiene unit equipped with up to four complete bathroom/shower rooms. The program aims to help individuals experiencing homelessness gain dignity and help them transition from homelessness into self-sufficiency.
The Clean the World WASH Stations Program provides access to restroom facilities and handwashing stations for unsheltered homeless individuals throughout the United States. This program was born out of the need to empower individuals experiencing homeless to protect themselves from illness that could be preventable through adequate hygiene such as proper sanitation, water access, and hygiene practices like handwashing.
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