Changing The Lives of Millions With a Bar of Soap

Have you wondered what happens to the soap you use and leave in hotel rooms after checking out? One frequent business traveler did and dug deeper. Shawn Siepler had the heart to change the world, and he did with a bar of soap. “We were throwing away more than 2 million bars of soap every single day. So that struck me.” Shawn was the Vice President of a global technology company. Seeing all this waste, he was determined to do something. “When we realized that there were 9000 children under the age of five dying every single day to hygiene-related illnesses. And if we just gave them soap and taught them how going to wash their hands that we could cut those deaths in half.” Knowing this [and] with [help from his] 8 family members, Shawn started scraping soap with potato peelers, cooking it and grinding it and reforming it into new bars [of soap]. All in a single-car garage, ten years ago. “We would go knock on the doors of hotels around Orlando and ask them to take their soaps and their bottled amenities. ” With ONE mission in mind; “We were going to save millions of children’s lives around the world.” In July 2009, he made his first international trip to Haiti where he saw the impact they made on those families, which motive him more to continue his work. “we’ve impacted the lives of 10 million people around the world, we’ve diverted 20 million pounds of waste. In those 10 years, the death rate, the children under the age of five, dying to hygiene-related illnesses has reduced by 60% years.” Now, with recycling centers in the United States and Hong Kong, the non-profit corporation has partnered with 8000 hotels across the globe, and [recycles waste for] almost half a million hotel rooms on a daily basis. “we’ve always been grounded in the mission and in the result of what we’re doing. And I think that’s helped us get through some of those tougher times ” Today, in honor of the approaching National Handwashing Awareness Week, Hilton Garden Inn and Hampton by Hilton announced its [plan to] expand [its] partnership with Seipler’s organization Clean the World. Next time you check out of a hotel, spare a thought for the barely touched bar of soap left behind in your room. It could just be on its way to save a life.