Sending Soap to Haiti

Planners and suppliers who stayed in conference hotels at PCMA's 2010 Annual Meeting in Dallas can take some comfort in knowing that they already are part of the tremendous relief effort mobilizing for Haiti.

At all five conference hotels, housekeepers like Elizabeth Cruz, from the Hyatt Regency Dallas, collected used soap and partially used shampoo during the meeting to donate to Clean the World, an Orlando-based organization which will sterilize the soap and send it to Haiti. (Along with the Hyatt Regency, The Fairmont Dallas, Hilton Anatole, Sheraton Dallas, and the Adolphus collected soap.)

Clean the World is focused on one thing: providing soap to Haiti, executive director Shawn Seipler said on Wednesday, the day after the earthquake hit Port-au-Prince. "As relief efforts begin and, undoubtedly, will last for years to come, proper hygiene and the need for soap is essential."

Studies by the World Health Organization show that hand washing with soap reduces the acute respiratory illness and diarrheal disease, both leading causes of death for children globally, Seipler told Convene last month. Even before the earthquake, many Haitian children lacked access to soap.

Hats off to Clean the World and to all the hotels for participating — even before they knew how very desperate the need in other parts of the world would become this week.