12:03 am | Monday, October 27th, 2014
Here is one fledgling company that has built 17 public school classrooms by selling bottled water in the past two years alone.
Friends of Hope does not solicit funds for its advocacy, realizing that “donor fatigue” is a limiting factor and won’t raise enough to build enough.
Instead, it runs its business like a private enterprise and pours all its profits after expenses into helping meet the country’s classroom backlog.
“To build more classrooms, we need to sell more water. To do this, we must get more partners to carry our product,” said Hope founder Nanette Medved-Po.
Hope in a Bottle is sold in about 70 cooperating establishments including 7-11, Starbucks and Seda Hotels.
Since it was put up in March 2012, it has sold about 2.5 million bottles, she said.
Noey Lopez, chief operating officer of Starbucks, said Hope in a Bottle was sold in about half of the firm’s coffee shops.
“Starbucks, wherever it is, has a culture of helping. Hope in a Bottle met our criteria as far as giving back to the community,” Lopez said.
“We are not doing charity. We are investing in the country. We are trying to help where we believe we can and should,” said Medved-Po.
Medved-Po said she took inspiration from celebrity philanthropists like U2 frontman Bono and Hollywood great Paul Newman.
From them, she learned that harnessing the expertise of private corporations in solving development problems “could lead to so much”.
“We decided on water because it is basic and you don’t have to worry about taste preference. It’s very straightforward and simple,” she said.
“A classroom, five years from now, will still be there. It’s a very easy thing to grasp. It’s tangible. And it is needed,” she said.
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