I am going on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic in January. My group is in charge of collecting travel sized toiletries…shampoo, conditioner, soap, body lotion, toothbrushes and toothpaste. We will be handing out these kits in the medical clinic. Does anyone have any suggestions of companies that would be able to donate and/or had any success with this type of donation?
My office held a toiletry collection once. Many of us travel on business quite often, so we ended up with many boxes of goods. Would you be able to connect with any local offices?
that’s a good idea! didn’t even think about a collection at work. i was going to possibly try local hotels, but not sure if the major chains are independently owned where they could even make that decision
Not wanting to sound picky, but why would patients attending a medical clinic require travel-sized toiletries? They’re not travelling, are they? Would it not make more sense to distribute the usual domestic sizes of the various products? If nothing else, more of what you distribute would be actual usable toiletries, and less of it would be packaging destined for landfill.
trust me, i’ve asked the same thing. the idea is that we will be able to pack more items if they are travel sized so more people can benefit
Many hospitals prefer the small toiletries because that way they can give each patient “his” bottles; it’s one less path to contagion. Does the clinic include an inpatient service or is it outpatient only?
If there are large-chain hotels nearby, they may be a good source for that kind of items if the idea is sold in a “community outreach” kind of way.
i believe it is outpatient only
Independently owned or managed hotels purchase their toiletry directly from hotel suppliers, the same as you can. So it’s not like they have some special access to toiletries. Asking them is functionally the same as asking for money, unless you happen to find a hotel that just switched brands and has leftovers or something.
With that in mind, you’d be better off asking people for money and purchasing the items that best suit the needs of the people you are working with.
If you do end up purchasing supplies, the best practice would be to buy locally produced items from local vendors if at all possible. This allows your work to improve the larger economy rather than potentially taking business away. It’s also worth noting that many toiletries are available in single-use foil packets. You can lug a lot of those around, but if you are working with the extremely poor, there may be some reuse value to bottles.