Hand Sanitizer Sent to Peace Corps!

At Zogics, giving back is part of who we are. We give 1% of all our sales to local land preservation organizations. When the earthquake struck Haiti in 2010 and more recently, when Hurricane Sandy struck the Northeast, we sent hand sanitizers and what supplies we could to whoever asked.

It doesn’t always take a crippling disaster for us to do something nice. Recently we got a request that I had a personal interest in; Kim Farnes is a Peace Corp volunteer serving as an English teacher in Telavi, Georgia. She arrived there this past April from Kent, Washington and one of the first things she noticed when she got to her post was the poor state of the facilities she was teaching in, specifically the bathrooms.

I understand what this woman is going through. I was a Peace Corp Volunteer (El Salvador, 2000) so when she found us online and sent us a request for alcohol-free foam hand sanitizer for her school restrooms (they have no running water) I knew we had to hook Kim up in a big way.

The Peace Corp is a two year commitment; your first three months are language and skill training with a group of 30 or so volunteers who will be in country with you. It’s a blast - think The Real World, but with people who are actually good intentioned and living in shacks instead of mansions with questionable hot tubs. A group of strangers thrown together in crazy circumstances who get to know each other and form life-long friendships. True story!

After that you are sent off to your site, which is usually remote and completely removed from your new comrades. It’s at this point that you start really missing stuff. Sure you miss your family, your friends. But you also miss crazy stuff. Like buffalo wings. Your brand of toothpaste, grocery stores, double ply toilet paper, speaking English. You miss your bed sheets, your shampoo, the mall, television -things you actually thought you hated about The States you start to get nostalgic about. The list grows and grows and sometimes you wake up in the middle of the night swearing that you can actually smell and taste a McDonald’s cheeseburger. It messes with you.

So when Kim wrote and said she needed foaming hand sanitizer, I knew she could use a little more than that. She needed American candy! She needed toilet paper! She needed a long letter! Her kids needed markers and crayons and paper and pencils! She needed MORE CANDY!! And of course, they needed the alcohol-free foam hand sanitizer.

Over the past couple of months we have gotten to know Kim fairly well and look forward to her pictures on Facebook and the emails she sends up with updates. She is doing amazing work in Georgia and we are really happy that she got in touch with us so that we could be a small part of it.

Thanks Kim!!