Delve into Vital Victoria with Victoria Foundation podcast
Anne McIntyre, founder and executive director of Soap for Hope Canada, and Lucky Budd, host of the Vital Victoria Podcast. Photo courtesy the Victoria Foundation
Anne McIntyre often starts a presentation for her Victoria non-profit with a simple question: “What would you feel like coming here today if you didn’t have a shower, you couldn’t brush your teeth, and you didn’t have deodorant or feminine products? Would you walk in as confident as you did today?”
It’s a question many have never thought about – unless you’ve had to choose between buying food and buying toothpaste or soap.
McIntyre is the Founder and Executive Director of Soap for Hope Canada, a non-profit and social enterprise working since 2015 to change lives by providing hope and dignity through hygiene.
Serving B.C. and Alberta, Soap for Hope staff and volunteers collect leftover soaps, shampoos and other hygiene products from partner hotels, along with other reusables like linens, pillows and lost-and-found items. Materials are cleaned, then redistributed to organizations supporting people in need.
Before she founded the organization, McIntyre was initially connecting with local organizations through her work with another international aid organization. It was a nudge from the Victoria Foundation that helped McIntyre realize that her vision deserved its own non-profit.
By 2022, Soap for Hope was re-distributing more than 2.3 million hygiene products from hotels and diverting more than 136,000 pounds from the landfill.
McIntyre shared her efforts with Lucky Budd, host of the Victoria Foundation’s Vital Victoria Podcast, which works to inspire listeners to get involved in the social impact and wellbeing space in our community, whether through volunteering or working in the sector.
Budd uncovers powerful stories through interviews with locals like McIntyre, who are making a difference in the social purpose world, through non-profits, charities and social enterprises, or those really making an impact through individual projects.
Other recent podcasts have included Harjas Singh Popli and Dr. Navneet Kaur Popli, chatting about the Fateh Care Charity mobile food bank, Rory Kulmala, CEO of the Vancouver Island Construction Association, on destigmatizing addiction and mental health in the construction industry, and many others.
In the latest episode – Russell Books: How a family’s literary legacy is building community – Budd chats with Andrea and Jordan Minter, whose family bookstore also brings people together through regular literary events, and supports non-profit literacy initiatives and schools in the region.
If you’d like to be more involved in making a social impact, or are curious about this innovative community of passionate people, don’t miss these monthly conversations! Download the Vital Victoria Podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
Take Victoria’s Vital Signs Survey today!
Many of the topics discussed in the podcast link directly to the areas covered by the Vital Signs survey, which helps inform the yearly Victoria’s Vital Signs report, an annual “community check-up” that helps identify some of the most pressing issues in our region.
Sponsored by Coast Capital, the survey is open until noon, May 31. Respondents are invited to grade 12 aspects of the community, both generally and as it relates to them specifically.
Survey participants will also be entered to win one of three Country Grocer gift cards worth $100 each. You can even double your chances to win by filling out the long-form version of the survey – it only takes a few minutes!
Learn more and take the survey at victoriafoundation.ca.
READ MORE: Help guide Victoria’s future: Take the 2024 Vital Signs survey