Every good company should play a part in making the world a better place.  In our industry, most of us consider community stewardship to be part of our hotel’s culture.  We’re in the hospitality business, after all.  Providing comfort is what we do.

For the past few years, Concord has worked with Feed the Children, helping to provide food and sundries to some 3,000 families.  By washing cars, writing and selling cookbooks and raising money in other homespun ways, our associates are helping to make a difference in the lives of people in their own communities.  Doing something for the greater good is the right thing to do, and we have fun doing it.  We’re not alone in this.  Most hotel companies do things like this for exactly the same reasons.

Here’s an idea that every hotel should get behind.  Recently, we partnered with Clean the World, www.cleantheworld.org, an organization that recycles and repurposes leftover bathroom amenities to help stem the spread of preventable diseases, such as cholera and pneumonia worldwide.  It’s one of those simple strokes of brilliance that come along every so often, and one I believe every hotel easily can support.

Clean the World collects leftover soap, shampoo, conditioner, lotions and gels – the stuff we throw away after each guest checks out – and repackages it to give to families around the world, including here in the U.S.   The work they did in Haiti following the recent devastating earthquake saved countless lives and helped prevent an epidemic of possibly epic proportions.
We began the program with them several months ago. Our hotels already have donated enough remaining product to provide a month’s worth of soap to nearly 3,200 children.  It takes a little organizing to get the program underway at a hotel, but it is neither costly nor time-consuming.

The return on your effort really makes a difference.  When you consider that every day 9,000 kids die from diseases that can be prevented by simple, good hygiene; this seems like a no-brainer.  Couple that with the knowledge that all those plastic bottles aren’t going to a landfill… how could you not participate?

With more than 1,400 participating hotels in North America (including 69 Concord Hospitality properties), Clean the World has diverted approximately 700 tons of waste from landfills and distributed more than 10 million bars of soap to children worldwide, helping stem the spread of preventable diseases.

Clean the World is launching a hygiene revolution and we, as an industry, can play a major role in their success.  It is not brain surgery, but it does save lives.  Won’t you join us? 

Look them up at www.cleantheworld.org to find out how easy it is to make a difference in someone’s life.

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