Saving Lives by Saving Soap
The Meritage Resort and Spa in Napa and its sister properties with the Meritage Collection hotels have announced a partnership with the organization Clean the World to help fight the spread of preventable diseases. The hotel brand now sends discarded soap and bottle amenities to Clean the World recycling centers, where the supplies are sanitized and then distributed across the globe to families in need.
Clean the World’s simple mission is to recycle soap from the hospitality industry and save lives through the distribution of these donated products. The organization is currently partnered with more than 4,000 hotels and resorts to give hygiene products to those who need them most. Through this collaboration, The Meritage Resort and the entire Meritage Collection will divert an estimated 4.5 tons of waste per year.
About two million children under the age of five die every year due to hygiene-related illnesses. Hand washing with soap is a low-cost intervention that can reduce those deaths by nearly 50 percent. Since 2009, Clean the World has distributed more than 30 million bars of soap in 100 countries.
It’s estimated that the U.S. lodging industry throws away more than one million bars of soap each day. By recycling soap and bottled amenities, the Meritage Collection is having a positive effect from both a humanitarian and environmental perspective.
www.meritageresort.com; www.cleantheworld.org
New Programs to Help the Homeless
The Santa Rosa City Council has approved a Community Homeless Assistance Pilot Program (CHAPP) to let property owners use their properties or facilities for safe parking, the placement of portable toilets and temporary shelter for the homeless during the winter months (November 1 2015 through March 30 2016). Eligible properties include those that meet the city’s zoning code definition for a meeting facility, such as clubs, lodges, private meeting halls, community centers, religious facilities, civic and private auditoriums, grange halls and union halls.
An owner may provide outdoor services (such as safe parking or portable toilets) as well as indoor services (such as temporary shelter) by registering their property with a form provided by the Department of Housing and Community Services. Permits and fees are waived under CHAPP. “The intent of the program is to encourage participation by property owners interested in or already providing these services and to foster collaboration too better serve vulnerable populations in our community.” Says Dave Gouin, director of HCS.
HCS will also coordinate CHAPP with Santa Rosa’s Homeless Outreach Services Team (HOST) program, a city-sponsored pilot program that works to engage unsheltered homeless with services and housing.
Teaming Up to Play
Second graders from Terra Linda’s Vallencito Elementary School have teamed up with a group of 11th graders from Terra Linda High School’s Marin School of Environmental Leadership’s (MarinSEL) Environmental Engineering class, to design playhouses. The juniors then learn how to build the structures through classes with an engineering instructor, who first teaches them woodworking skills before students plan prototypes using Google SketchUp, a modeling software.
In the year-long project, the MarinSEL students meet with their younger peers to discuss ideas. After brainstorming together, the juniors share prototypes for the second graders to dissect and critique. The juniors then build the models based on the prototypes. Marin School of Environmental Leadership’s director Cyane Dandridge says “At MarinSEL, we’re constantly looking for new ways to engage with our surrounding community. We’re thrilled for the students to collaborate in this way–to create and problem solve alongside one another. This kind of out-of-the-box thinking is critical in tackling our world’s most pressing issues.”
The final play structures will be on sale at the end of the school year to support the MarinSEL Environmental Engineering Program.
www.thesel.org; facebook.com/themarinsel
