Clean the World: Orlando, FL
On October 26, 2024, members of the Sri Sathya Sai Group of Orlando along with a few Sai Spiritual Education (SSE) students volunteered at Clean the World, a non-profit global recycling project which collects unwanted bars of soap and other amenities from hotels and motels. The hospitality industry discards 2 million bars of soap daily which ends up as trash in landfills. Meanwhile millions of children die daily from lack of hygiene products such as soap for hand washing, something we often take for granted. By recycling the unused soaps into new bars and donating them to the WASH Foundation, Clean the World saves millions of impoverished children from contracting diseases and dying from unhygienic and unclean conditions. Globally, approximately 2.5 billion cases of diarrhea occur among children under 5 years of age every year. Diarrhea is the cause of 1.8 million deaths each year, something that could be avoided with greater hygiene through simple acts of cleaning with soap. Clean the World has already salvaged 27.9 million pounds of soap products and donated over 86.3 million bars of recycled soap since it began in 2009, resulting in a huge global impact in saving children’s lives.
SSE students discovered the service project online in 2019 but served only once, as volunteers could not be onsite after the onset of COVID pandemic. However, more recently, the site has welcomed back volunteers onsite, and the Sai Group returned with zeal twice so far, on September 14, 2024, and October 26, 2024.
Twelve members from the Sai Group met at Clean the World/WASH Foundation Warehouse. At the start, there was a short tour of the Museum of Soap that features the origins of soap to the process of soap-making and displays of samples from around the world. Volunteers began the service by removing the plastic covers from the soaps, then sorting the bars by color. They worked for approximately 4 hours and were able to fill 1- 2 pallets of boxes with bars of soap. These boxes must be carefully packed so the soaps don’t break when they are shipped.
Volunteers are thrilled to participate in this service because of the amazing life-saving benefits this seemingly simple act of collecting unused soaps from hotels can bring to so many. When one’s intentions are noble, a simple project can be scaled globally and benefits millions of underprivileged children and families. For the SSE children, it reinforced Sai dictum that Cleanliness is next to Godliness!