Last updated on March 12th, 2024 at 11:05 pm
Everyone deserves to feel clean. Feeling clean is not a luxury or a privilege, it’s a basic human right. This belief is at the heart of our movement. It unites our volunteers and powers our 190 local projects throughout the UK.
It was also the belief of Boots founder, Jesse Boot, who chose to stock soap as the store’s first non-medicinal product, because he recognised that basic hygiene is the foundation of good health and should be accessible to everyone.
These beliefs first came together in 2019, when Boots named our founder, Lizzy Hall, as one of their ‘Women of the Year’, awarding her the “Wellness Warrior” accolade in recognition of her transformative work in tackling hygiene poverty in communities throughout the UK.
Rooted in shared beliefs and grounded in community, the Boots and The Hygiene Bank partnership grew from strength to strength. What started as 25 in-store drop-off points in 2019, now stands at over 600 and counting. These stores champion and support our local projects and volunteers. Today, through The Hygiene Bank’s growing network of community partners, the partnership has provided over 1.5 million hygiene basics to people experiencing poverty or crisis in the UK.
But our work together goes beyond meeting the needs of those of us experiencing hygiene poverty today. Our partnership is future-facing, with both Boots and The Hygiene Bank passionately committed to ending hygiene poverty for good.
Right from the start, we have collaborated to drive awareness and expose the hidden crisis of hygiene poverty – establishing National Hygiene Week as a mainstream awareness event, campaigning to understand how hygiene poverty impacts children in UK schools and, most significantly, producing the UK’s first national research into hygiene poverty.
This year, Boots has selected The Hygiene Bank as their official Christmas partner, bringing our belief that everyone deserves to feel clean to millions of people in the UK. Alongside the spectacular surge in awareness, this seasonal campaign will deliver an additional 120,000 product donations from Boots.
In keeping with the #GiveJoy spirit of Boots Christmas campaign, you can engage with Thank you, Santa, Boots’ gorgeous Christmas advert on sustainable media platform ‘WeAre8’, which allows people to earn rewards for watching videos that support social and environmental causes. Throughout December, the Boots Christmas advert will be featured in a ‘WeAre8’ campaign to drive awareness of our partnership, with a percentage of the Boots’ total media spend on this platform donated to The Hygiene Bank.
We know that our community partners – food banks, schools, family support services and shelters – are facing their toughest winter yet. But thanks to our incredible Christmas partnership with our longest standing brand partner Boots, The Hygiene Bank can deliver an extra 120,000 reasons to believe in the joyful power of Christmas giving.
