The Boys and Girls Club of Dane County (BGCDC) received what it believes to be its largest-ever in-kind donation after Dove gifted around $1.1 million of personal care products to be distributed across Wisconsin.
On Dec. 22, the Boys and Girls Club of Dane County hosted a press conference at Certco, 5321 Verona Road, to discuss the large donation from Dove and how the products will impact the community. The donation helps with its “Pay it Forward” campaign that sees 25 days of giving. It has already given thousands of dollars in computers and toys, but the most recent donation will help with an unseen issue — access to personal care products.
“Today, our community is going to receive body soap, hand soap, and about 16 different flavors of Dove products that’s going to go all the way from Madison throughout the state of Wisconsin, to Illinois and Minnesota,” said Michael Johnson, CEO of BGCDC.
The products are being housed at Certco after its CEO saw one of Johnson’s social media posts about the donation from Dove. She called him right away to ask how she could get involved.
Johnson soon got in touch with Certco and sent trucks over to its warehouse. Certco will serve as the middle point for the large inventory of Dove products as it works to bring them to those most in need.
Products will be sent over to places like Madison Metropolitan School District, the Salvation Army, Sunshine Place and many others to stock their pantries.
Personal care products are an often unrecognized need that many facing insecurity lack. Mark Thompson, volunteer and president of Sun Prairie’s Sunshine Place food pantry, notes that products for personal care are at the top of the list for many users of its pantry.
“You pick out what’s best for your family. The first aisle they come to is personal care, and it is one of the most popular and one of the most expensive for us to maintain,” Thompson said. “Why is it so popular? Because we all got up this morning and we use soap products. We take that for granted, but the folks that are in poverty, folks trying to make ends (meet), they can’t. They don’t take that for granted.”
(Photo by Omar Waheed)
Personal hygiene products are not covered by SNAP benefits; there is no support for it, it’s costly and taxed, Thompson said. Sunshine Place has increased its spending over the past five years as demand has continued to increase.
Andy Gussert, state director of the Boys and Girls Club of Wisconsin, brought attention to just how many people in Wisconsin the donation can impact in its locations alone. Wisconsin, which serves more youth with Boys and Girls Clubs than any other state, works with 138,525 youths a year.
“One out of [seven] kids here in Wisconsin that goes to school… go to a club,” Gussert said. “So those 138,000 kids, along with their families, now we’re going to have products that cost a lot of money, and they’re going to be able to take funds that they would have had to use for this and move it to something else beautiful over the next week or two.”
