SPOKANE, Wash. – Hot temperatures and travel normally go together like a dream, but right now one local nonprofit in Spokane says as you head out the door, they need your help serving homeless members of the community.
Just on Monday TSA released that 2.2 million Americans traveled on Sunday alone, a massive increase from any point during the pandemic.
As the world reopens and the travel sector starts to ramp back up, the executive director of Project Beauty Share, Julie Farley, hopes you bring back more than just a snow globe from your next vacation.
Farley said that before the pandemic, the organization that gives items like shampoo, soap, makeup and feminine hygiene products to shelters was seeing a study donation of small travel size shampoos from hotels.
When Americans stopped traveling that supply dwindled, but the need has accelerated.
Project Beauty Share’s main goal is providing hygiene items to women in need. Hygiene products cannot be purchased with food stamps making the need greater.
Farley says right now the demand from the organizations that they supply to in Spokane, Yakima Valley, and in Seattle are saying that there’s an increased need and small travel-size items to give out to people, not because of COVID but the hot temperatures.
Project Beauty Share serves over 130 agencies served and 65,000 families. Last year, they distributed 80,000 pounds valued at $2.7 million to families across our region.
“So with the shelters full what you’re seeing, and I see it daily on my drive on my way into work are people that are bathing in their cars,” Farley said. “So we really feel like we need to step up as we did for COVID with soap.”
So as you hit the road this summer on your vacation, Farley is putting out the SOS for your leftover shampoos and bars of soap.
“We feel the need to step up to provide cleansing cloths, small sizes for individuals so if they can get to a shower that they would have some of these products,” Farley said.
Right now, due to the extreme heat and people living in their cars the biggest need are those hand wipes, as that’s what some people are using to bath with.
Farley added if you leave those tiny hotel soaps behind, the chances of them being recycled are slim to none.
So taking them home with you and donating them to Project Beauty Share insures that somebody in the community will get a much-needed product to stay clean.
Farley also said that there is a massive need for feminine hygiene products and they’re always excepting donations of those as well.
There are donation boxes across Spokane if you want to donate to them directly you can also follow this link to their Amazon wish list.