Hand in Hand

Clean water and sanitation are global issues we care deeply about.

In light of August being Water Quality Month in the U.S., we are proud to be hosting a blog tour with several other like-minded brands and non-profit organizations to raise awareness on the importance of water quality.

Water is the center of all life. Unfortunately, in many areas of our world, fresh water is unaccessible, causing many water-borne illnesses.  This sad reality is what prompted co-founders Bill Glaab & Courtney Apple to start Hand in Hand in the first place. After reading an article stating that 5 million children die worldwide from water related illnesses, and that 65% of those cases could be prevented with simple hand washing, Bill & Courtney decided to start a social business around soap with the simple mission of "Buy a bar, Give a bar".

Since 2011, our work has mainly taken place in Haiti where we have donated over 240,000 bars of soap! In 2013 our mission expanded to providing clean water for the children we were serving with bar soap donations and we built our first well in Onaville, an area just outside of Port-Au-Prince. Since then we have repaired two broken wells in Port-Au-Prince and supplied access to fresh spring water in the mountain community of Fonds Parisian, where people were traveling up to 3 hours a day to retrieve fresh water. To date we've helped thousands of people gain access to clean, quality water, all possible thanks to your purchases!

To highlight August being Water Quality Month, we've collaborated with brands who support the same mission: to provide clean water to developing areas in need.  Every day this week, each organization will tell their story, like we have above, about the importance of clean water and the region where their efforts are focused.

Follow along with us this week at the schedule below and on social media with #wecareaboutwater

Monday: Hand in Hand -- Haiti

Tuesday: Voss Foundation -- Sub-Saharan Africa

Wednesday: Akola Project -- Uganda + Dallas

Thursday: Nest -- Swaziland

Friday: Seacology -- Micronesia

Last year, we built our first well in the city of Onaville, Haiti for 240 families whose only source of water was over five miles away. This year, instead of building another new well, we had the opportunity to fix 3 broken wells.  The two first broken wells had not functioned in over a year. These broken wells left hundreds of people without access to clean water. We were able to meet with the wonderful Haitian men who were putting the final touches on one of the newly restored wells.

Further down the street and down a deep ravine, our second well was being fully utilized with water pumping nonstop for the 100-plus families it serves. We chatted with many community members and learned that each family was pumping around three 5-gallon buckets of water a day. Witnessing the never-ending flood of people coming to the well, there was no doubt that we had made a significant impact in the lives of many.

On one of the last days of the trip we traveled to Fonds Parisian, a beautiful spot east of Port-Au-Prince.  We donated soap and brought fresh water to the communities in Fonds Parisian -- but did so in a different way.  

Nearby, but very difficult to access due to the vast mountain ranges, is a large natural spring. Many years ago, a couple of cisterns and pipes were installed to pump and use the gravity of the mountain to deliver the water to the communities in the valley below. Six faucets were installed in villages, and everything worked well until about six years ago, when a hurricane wiped out much of the infrastructure, rendering the system useless. For the past six years, these communities have had to travel upward of three hours a day up and down a mountain to retrieve fresh water!

But that will all change in the next month as the repairs we've funded are completed and the faucets that are already in place will once again bring fresh spring water directly to the communities. We were able to hike into the woods to see one of the two cisterns that will work in conjunction with a new solar pump to provide water to the valley below. We can honestly say we have never seen such clear, sparkling water as we did on that hike. It gushed from miniature waterfalls and trickled down the mountain to the dirt road below.  This fix will bring water to communities that will no longer have to make that treacherous climb daily.

To read a day to day recap on our trip, visit Martha Stewart online here to read about the trip in its entirety.  (All four days of the trip can be found at the end of each post).

after months and months of product development and production, we are so excited to debut our new soap dishes, lip balm, liquid soap, lotion, and sugar scrub! check out these beauties below and pick up some on our shop page, today (and lip balm will be available in the next 2 weeks)!

and remember, for every product purchased, we donate a bar of soap and a month of clean water to children in need.

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today we wanted to share with you some super special news.  we have teamed up with this incredible new beauty subscription service called TREATMiNT Box.  TREATMiNT Box offers gifts for cancer patients and survivors.  It is the first-ever subscription service dedicated to cancer patients, survivors and caregivers.  Their amazing boxes are specially curated to provide products of inspiration to fuel the fight of those battling and healing from cancer.

this month, we were lucky enough to be picked to have our orange blossom soap included in the July TREATMiNT Box.  we are so thrilled to take part in such an inspirational venture.  

if you know anyone who is undergoing treatment or is a survivor, check out their incredible work and order a box, today!

                                                       we wish you the happiest of holidays and a happy new year!

                                                                                      with love,

how beautiful is the photography & styling in this piece?  philadelphia wedding sure makes our suds look glamorous! 

this wedding cake & our orange blossom soaps make the most perfect couple! what a great pairing for your own wedding, don't you think?  

if interested in using our delectable soaps as your wedding favor, email us at [email protected] and we would be more than happy to offer you a special wedding rate!

we wanted to share this important day with you where we opened up our first-ever well in onaville, haiti.  

onaville, haiti is a community of over 30,000 displaced people who are trying to rebuild their lives.  onaville has no infrastructure for water, roads, or electricity.  many people in the community must walk over three miles to get a 5 gallon bucket of water.  with this new well built (the only one in the community) over 240 families will have access to clean water each and every day!

                                                                              right next to the new well, we built a tippy tap which allows people to wash their hands in such a simple & efficient way, using very little water.  tippy taps offer a great way to promote hand washing with soap, especially with children.   (on the left: bill, co-founder of hand in hand, and on the right: william from, my neighbors children, our non-profit partner, who helped make this well possible).

                                                                                                                                                                                                                here are photos of our first-ever well! we were so excited to open it up and see the water flow.  what made it most rewarding was seeing the community fill up their buckets with smiles on their faces, knowing now that they will have clean water!  

                                                                                                                                                                                                                          we heard from community members that they used to have to walk 3 or more miles to access clean water, and now with this new well, they won't have to!

 stay tuned to our next post where we will be featuring the day we opened up our first-ever well!

we hope you enjoy these snapshots of haiti!

                          scene from the community where our non-profit, my neighbors children, is building a school. 

                                                                               this is bon samaritain orphanage, where we donate soap & play with the kids. these kids are so resilient! we always visit these amazing kids when we come to haiti.

                                        as voss foundation points out on their blog post, 1500 bacteria live on just 1 centimeter of your hand and millions of children die each year from water related illness, but washing hands with soap & water can reduce that number by nearly half.

voss foundation is non-profit, providing access to clean water to communities in sub-saharan africa and raising awareness of ongoing need in the region.

nest is a non-profit, devoted to maintaining traditions of craft and the livelihood of artisans worldwide.

leading up to global handwashing day, all 3 of our organizations will post updates and tweets across facebook & twitter.

please help us spread the word by sharing and retweeting our posts, to be entered to win a gift bag with goodies from voss, nest, and of course, hand in hand!

washing hands can ward off germs that cause diarrhea, pneumonia, skin diseases, eye worms, and intestinal worms.  just 20 seconds with soap and water washes away the possibilities of such diseases and illness.  when you promote washing hands with soap & water, you can help save lives by bringing awareness to preventing these water related illnesses.

make sure to follow hand in hand, voss foundation & nest to participate in the celebration of handwashing day.  

to learn more about global handwashing day, visit the global public-private partnership for handwashing (ppphw).

                      big news! after months & months of preparation we are finally heading back to haiti tomorrow, september 27th for the ribbon cutting of our first ever well! this is so exciting because each well provides clean water for 240 families each and every day for a decade! 

we wanted to thank you because we could not have done it without your support!