I keep writing about how important it is to show kindness where you can, to help someone who needs it. It’s not strange to see people frightened or anxious in these times but it is strange to see people still not taking this seriously. I haven’t been able to find liquid hand soap in my past few excursions to the grocery store. It’s one of the many items that people are wiping out of the stores when they can. What if people were giving away these kinds of essentials to anyone who needed them? What would this kind of radical kindness look like? It’d look like what Stephen Ezell and his local company My Green Fills are doing.
Every Friday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. My Green Fills has two large containers outside of their Traverse City, South Airport location. One if filled with laundry soap, and one is filled with hand soap. As long as you bring your own reusable container for either, the company is giving the soaps away for free between these hours every Friday.
The company’s focus is to cut down on plastic use by providing cleaning solutions that are eco-friendly, non-toxic, and are meant to be used in reusable containers.
“We ship members concentrated formulas. We don’t ship water, we don’t ship packaging, so the end result is less waste, less plastic.”
Not only is My Green Fills providing free soap on Fridays, but they’re also providing work for newly laid-off locals.
“We’re in the middle of a crisis. There are so many people in our community who are laid off, we just hired 40 people here.”
So far, the Free Soap Fridays have served over 200 families and they’ll only serve more as time goes on. Stephen and his company are committed to helping out during this pandemic no matter how long it lasts. However, it’s important to note that each family is limited to one container of each hand and laundry soap. The spirit of this act of kindness is to act with more grace than those who are selfishly taking more than what they need. Now, more than ever, we need people to show compassion and grace.
“People can drive up, it’s completely safe. It’s a sanitized, socially distant area. They can use a water bottle, a milk jug, whatever and they can go to a refill station. We’ll provide soap every week until this crisis is over. If the financial crisis is still here in a year we’re still going to be giving away free soap and helping our neighbors.”
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