PUGET SOUND, WA — As thousands of students gear up to head back to school this fall, Bartell Drugs employees and customers around western Washington are ramping up their efforts to give many of the students the tools they need to succeed.

From August 5^th – September 1st, customers can donate supplies at the checkout or make an online donation. Proceeds will provide essential school supplies such as notebooks, paper, pens and pencils, scissors, markers and crayons, and basic hygiene items.

“Bartell Drugs’ mission is to provide the services and products to ensure the health and wellbeing of our community,” says Steven Frestedt, VP of Marketing at Bartell. “There is perhaps no better illustration of how this is accomplished than the [World Vision] School Tools program.”

“Employees are very happy and willing to participate and achieve the goals because they know how important the cause is,”  Frestedt says. “At corporate [headquarters], we know that August is School Tools month and we have a pretty clear pathway to get it up and functioning each year. It’s like Christmas time every August.”

World Vision is Bartell Drugs’ largest local charity partner, and the School Tools event is one of World Vision’s longest running annual corporate partnership events.

2018 marks the 16th year of this partnership to provide essentials for World Vision’s US Programs Teachers’ Resource Center in Fife, Washington. The campaign has raised more than $150,000 in school supplies and personal hygiene supplies since 2015.

WINTER HAVEN, FL—Moved by the simplicity of World Vision’s mission to help people in need, students at Jewett School of the Arts in Winter Haven, Florida, have found a cause they can believe in.

In fact, choosing World Vision and its School Tools program over the many other worthy causes vying for their support came easy.

“The students on the Legacy Project team scoured the website and all the options and chose this one to help out kids like them that deserve a positive educational experience but may not have the opportunity without assistance,” says 8th grade ELA and reading teacher Sonya Barnes.

“We are a Title I school, meaning that many of these kids are on free or reduced lunch and come from low-income families, yet helped in some way to make this happen. That was the sweetest part of it all.”

All 749 students in the kindergarten to 8th-grade school contributed to the classroom competition fundraiser to provide basic school supplies for at-risk children living in poverty in the U.S.

Not only did they learn how to organize and plan an event, they discovered how their combined efforts can have a huge impact on other children’s lives. The sense of pride in being associated with this project was palpable.

“People all over the world need help in some way and, no matter how small your contribution, it has a huge impact on the world—not to mention the impact it can have on your organization and morale,” Barnes says.

“Through World Vision, we can go beyond what we ever thought we could do and beyond what we alone can do. So many of our students were wholeheartedly invested in this as soon as they learned how different other people’s lives were. Many had no idea that the world was so big and that others had it worse than what they knew of in our own towns.”

Procter & Gamble and World Vision are celebrating a decade of partnership, providing a powerful example of what can happen when the private sector and non-profit sphere work together. Their combined efforts have impacted 6.4 million people and provided 2 billion liters of clean water in 37 countries.

“What’s so exciting is we’re bringing together the world’s largest NGO provider of clean water and the world’s largest consumer products company,” said Allison Tummon Kamphuis, Leader of the P&G Children’s Safe Drinking Water Program. “With our combined size and scale, we’ve seen impact that is literally life-changing for millions of children and their families.”

The partnership comes at a time of both tremendous progress and stark need around the world when it comes to clean water. Millions are forced to drink dirty, contaminated water. Nearly 1000 children die every day as a result of drinking unsafe water, and due to poor sanitation and hygiene.

“In the many communities I’ve visited, whether it’s a village afflicted by severe poverty, natural disaster, or drought, water is the key unlocking a better life for families and children,” said Dr. Greg Allgood, Vice President of Water at World Vision. “Access to clean water impacts every facet of a family’s life. It improves health, enables kids to get an education, and empowers families economically.”

One of the central features of the partnership are the innovative P&G Purifier of Water packets. More than 200 million P&G packets have been given to families throughout World Vision communities. Within 30 minutes the small packet transforms brown, dirty and potentially dangerous water into clean and healthy water for drinking.

The packets are used as a life-changing bridge in communities where World Vision works and plans to bring a permanent, clean water source. They also are a tool in disaster response and are currently being used in East Africa where families are experiencing severe drought.

“I’m so grateful to P&G and WV for providing us with clean water. It’s helped my family during this drought. It’s saving lives,” said Halima Osman, a mother of 8 children.

Osman lives in one of the areas in Kenya that is struggling due to food insecurity and drought. Her family is forced to use very muddy, shallow water and prior to having the P&G packets, the children had diarrhea. They have been using the packets for 6 months.

“We’re committed to continuing our partnership and bringing the power of clean water to those who need it,” Allgood said. “We’re thankful for P&G supporting our work in 10 countries in Asia and Africa in the last year by helping us provide more than 350 million liters of clean water including in East Africa for the drought response.”

World Vision is the largest nongovernmental (NGO) provider of clean water in the developing world, reaching one new person with clean water every 10 seconds and reaching three more schools with clean water every day. In 2017, World Vision provided access to clean water to 3.2 million people.

Want your company to play a key role in changing lives around the world? Consider forming a strategic partnership with World Vision!

The co-founder of the nation’s largest drive-up pure drinking water and ice company grew up in a town with bad water. “I remember as a newlywed on the front of the water bill, it would tell you what you would owe, and then you’d flip it over and on the back side,” says Lani Dolifka.” There would be a warning, and it would say, ‘Do not drink the water if you were pregnant or under 6 months of age.’”

Watermill Express is born

In 1984, Lani and Don, her then-boyfriend and now-husband took action. “With the help of family and friends, we developed an automated water purification kiosk that could take municipal water, process it through a multi-barrier system, and produce a very high quality, affordable source for safe drinking water,” she says.

Their goals were modest. “All we wanted to do was just provide water for our small community,” she says, “and a few communities in northern Colorado. But we learned there were a lot of other places in this country that had similar issues, and a lot were in underserved communities.”

With that knowledge, Lani began a 30-year journey to seek out America’s communities with contaminated water. “I’ve traveled to many of these small, forgotten areas in this country, seeing firsthand what it’s like to not have safe, affordable drinking water,” she says. Today, their company, Watermill Express, has 1,300 locations around the United States.

A clean water moment

Fast forward to 2016, and Lani is travelling back to Kenya, this time with World Vision. In a small village she met Naomi, who would trek daily for 7 miles to carry dirty water back to her family. “It had that green sludge on the top,” remembers Lani, “and when she pulled out water in the jerry can, it looked more solid than liquid.”

Call it a “green sludge moment.” Call it an epiphany. Something changed in Lani. “I think it was that moment it hit me. I thought, ‘As a mom of two kids, what must a mom feel like when this is the only water she can give to her kids?’ It’s the best she can do.” And then another horrifying thought: how so many children die every day from diarrhea.

Lani immersed herself in the experience, even getting the chance to carry water like so many women and girls do around the world. “And for those of you who have also had that experience,” she says, “you know it’s one of those things that hurts everything at the same time. It did for me, at least. You know, my back hurt; my head hurt; my arms, my legs, even my feet hurt that day.”

The pain was beyond physical. “My brain also hurt,” she says. “Because I knew that no sooner I took that water home, it’d be consumed in a matter of hours. And that meant I’d have to go back again and get that water again, and again, and again. And if I was pregnant or ill, that would be really, really difficult.”

Lani put herself into Naomi’s shoes. She now knew how it felt to spend seven hours gathering water. Every single day. It was so much to fathom. “When you’re spending that much time doing something just for basic survival,” she says, “you don’t have a lot of extra time to make your life or your kid’s lives better, and that’s what we want.”

More than child sponsorship

Meeting Naomi deepened Lani’s heart for the poor. It also touched her mother’s heart. “We want to make our kids’ lives better,” says Lani. “And when clean water is brought to a woman like Naomi, she starts seeing hope and a better future for her kids, especially her daughters.”

Lani learned that when women like Naomi receive clean water, it cuts down on water-related diseases that plague families. Sick less often, kids spend more time in school. Families held back by the long walk for water can move forward in new ways. Everyone gets back precious time. “That additional time [allows] Naomi to attend church and tend to her family’s well-being,” says Lani. “I can’t think of two better things to do than go to church and raise your family, and that’s what the clean water helped her achieve. We take so much for granted.”

Although Lani and her family were child sponsors, they did not know that World Vision is the leading provider of clean water in the developing world. “When I found that out, I immediately decided I was going to support World Vision’s work in water,” she says. So far, her foundation has provided more than 100 million gallons of clean water to families around the world.

Because we deliberately integrate opportunities for women and girls into every aspect of our work, we were uniquely positioned to partner alongside Walmart in their Women’s Economic Empowerment Initiative and WIF program. We know that investments that lift up women and girls lead to healthier families, communities and nations across the globe.

Together through WIF, the Walmart Foundation and World Vision provided training to 15,701 women and 9,898 men in factories in Honduras and El Salvador, helping them build skills in personal finance, nutrition, and speaking and negotiating in the workplace. A total of 53 factories from different sectors completed the training process as part of Walmart’s commitment to promote flourishing work environments for factory workers around the world.

Goal and Outcomes

The goal of the partnership was to increase the productivity and self-esteem of factory workers, especially women, and positively impact factory operations.

According to a Tufts University study, the project achieved the following metrics:

• Turnover: Reduced from 14.6% per month, to 2.6% per month
• Efficiency Rate: Increased 29%
• Production Target: Increased by 15%, probability of reaching new target increased 11%
• Health: Improved mental health, life satisfaction, and healthy behaviors (boiling water before drinking)
• Empowerment: Reduced dehumanizing and abusive behaviors at work and in the home

 

Transforming Lives for the Better

Before completing Foundational and Advanced training, Anabelith Guevara worked at Confecciones Monzine in Honduras in the sewing department. Anabelith did so well through all the training courses that she was picked to complete the Trainer of Trainers (TOT) course. “This opportunity as facilitator has opened my mind to dream that I can improve, it has woken up in me new life expectations. I feel motivated to work with other people and I have seen the support of my colleagues in this process, collaborating with me and letting me develop as their facilitator,” Anabelith said.

The Women in Factories program has provided a way for people to transform their lives and those of their families. Women and men have been trained on assertive communication, self-esteem, gender, and health. This is expected to benefit their children as they educate them and treat them better. In Central America, men have a unique influence on cultural change at home. 85% of the men who completed the Foundational Training said that they experienced significant changes in their mindset on the roles of women in society, the workplace, and in the family.

Participants better understood their role in society, regardless of their sex, and are more aware of gender equality and their rights and responsibilities as citizens. They are more committed to abandoning stereotypes and providing equal opportunities for all. Women and men are committed to balancing gender roles and responsibilities in future generations.

This program has indirectly benefitted 95,000 people, of whom 66 percent are children, adolescents and young people, in El Salvador and Honduras. 90 percent of the people who participated in the training chose to share the training with their families and neighbors.

As women thrive in all areas of life, their success translates to the marketplace, ensuring a stronger, more productive workforce for the entire manufacturing sector.