MudLOVE, Humanity & Hope United Foundation and “The Bachelor” Ben Higgins are launching a new campaign to provide jobs in Honduras and clean water in Africa.
All they’re asking for through the campaign – titled “Get Hope. Give Hope.” – is that people purchase a “Hope” band for $15, with half of the proceeds going to Humanity & Hope and the other half to MudLOVE.
“Before Ben went on the show we just thought it would be cool to give him a band, just because we knew he was going on a journey that was going to be kind of crazy, kind of tough,” Luke Wright, MudLOVE founder, said in an interview Thursday. “We asked him to come in and get a band, a free gift, and he chose the word ‘Hope’ with a blue elastic. Didn’t ask him to wear it on the show, just thought it would be cool to give him a bracelet – (it) serves as a reminder a lot of times for people going through hard circumstances or whatever.”
The first episode of this season’s “The Bachelor” aired Jan. 4. Wright said when the advertisements aired for the ABC show, Higgins – a 2008 Warsaw Community High School graduate – was wearing the bracelet, which everyone at MudLOVE thought was cool.
After the first episode aired, MudLOVE’s social media blew up a little bit.
“We were like, ‘Alright, we need to think about how to handle this,’” Wright said.
A Fort Wayne radio station asked to do an interview about Higgins wearing the band. Wright was excited to do that, but wanted to talk to Higgins first about what it meant to him.
“We talked to him. He suggested let’s do more with this, let’s try and collaborate with Humanity & Hope United. Maybe we could do more to push the product, do something,” Wright said.
They then brought in the president and co-founder of Humanity & Hope, Riley Fuller, and Brandon Conley, vice president, board of directors, to come up with a strategy.
It was decided to sell “Hope” bands for $15 with the proceeds split between the two organizations.
“Through H&H, it gives somebody a day of work in Honduras. Through MudLOVE it gives someone a week of clean water,” Wright said.
The campaign officially will be launched through Higgins’ social media when the Warsaw episode of “The Bachelor” airs, which Wright said is Feb. 15.
The cost of the “Hope” band is a little more, Wright said, because “we figured it was going to give back in more ways than one. We thought we’d just up the price and make a donation for people, essentially, through a product.”
General curiosity about the band Higgins wears already has brought in some orders, Wright said. Next week they’re going to review their marketing strategy for the bracelets and see what other opportunities are out there.
“We’re going to see where it takes us basically,” Wright said.
The campaign is just the bracelets at this point. The bands are available online now, but once the Warsaw episode airs Feb. 15, they’ll be available at the shops in Warsaw and Winona Lake.
“This is about helping the people in Honduras and the people in Africa. It’s not about us, it’s not about Ben, it’s not about H&H. It’s about kind of using the opportunities that have been presented to us to show hope to the world,” Wright concluded. “We’re not in it for more publicity or anything, we just want to use the unique opportunity to make a difference in the world.”
Wright said they don’t have a set goal as to how many they want to sell or how much money they want to raise. But for one band sold, one day of work is created through H&H’s job creation initiative in Honduras; for every 300 bands sold, one full-time job is created and one family is provided with economic security, according to MudLOVE’s blog. Every band also will provide a week of clean water in the Central African Republic through MudLOVE’s partnership with Water for Good.
“We don’t want to say we’re just trying to raise $20,000 and then we’re done. We just kind of want to tier it and see how many families we can really support and see how long we can keep it going,” Wright said.
MudLOVE began in fall 2009.
“Before I started MudLOVE, I felt inspired by God to give back somehow, and I kind of landed on clean water,” Wright explained.
Through its partnership with Water for Good, every product purchased provides one week of clean water to someone in need. The Central African Republic is a country in desperate need of hope, love and basic necessities. Access to safe, clean water has the power to transform communities and save lives, according to MudLOVE’s website.
Wright said, “MudLOVE has a saying. MudLOVE starts with Mud and ends with LOVE. Basically, the way that works, is we’re going to use our hands and ideas to create things out of mud, and then we’re going to take that and show some kind of tangible love with that. The way we do that every day is through clean water by supporting Water for Good, but then this opportunity with H&H is just another way for us to show love through our product.”
The MudLOVE website is at www.mudlove.com
The Humanity & Hope United Foundation was launched in fall 2010 with one goal in mind: to build deep, trusting and loving relationships with people living in some of Honduras’ most impoverished areas, according to information posted on MudLOVE’s blog.
It “takes the unique approach of listening directly to the people it aims to support. In communicating with the residents of countryside villages, H&H quickly discovered that job creation is one of the most pressing needs. In response, hundreds of acres of unused land have been purchased for the development of farming jobs for both men and women. This year, 50 percent of the nonprofit’s operational goals will be dedicated to the creation of new employment opportunities.”
Humanity & Hope’s website is at http://humanityandhopeunited.org/
(Story By The Times Union)
