As the days get shorter, PHLUSH gets busier. We work for a sustainable human right to sanitation across North America, and October gave us the opportunity to go glocal. Glocalization is often defined as looking at international issues locally. Throughout October, we have been working on sanitation issues in the community where we’re based – Jefferson County, Washington.
At a Nonprofit Fair in early October 6th, we helped launch the online Give Jefferson campaign. It was great to meet staff and volunteers from dozens of Jefferson County nonprofits and to learn about their work and opportunities to collaborate. We’d like to give a huge shout out to the Jefferson Community Foundation: They’re ” building a caring and connected community – both now and for future generations – through engaged philanthropy.” They’ve developed a cool new platform for online giving. Please consider supporting PHLUSH work in our local community.
For the Great Washington Shake Out on October 18th, we spread the word on disaster sanitation to emergency management agencies in the Cascadia Subduction Zone. In a CSZ quake, pipes will break! Our toilets won’t flush. We reminded first responders that they’ll be busy ensuring supplies potable water, a life or death issue in week 1 post event. Households should be prepared to manage their own sanitation with the Twin Bucket Emergency Toilet. How-to leaflets developed by Jefferson County Department of Emergency Management, in partnership with PHLUSH and Local 20/20 NPREP, are available for households on sewer and for those with septic systems.
We’ve been applauding No Place to Go: How Public Toilets Fail our Private Needs. This new book by Halifax-based author Lezlie Lowe is “a marriage of urbanism, social narrative, and pop culture that shows the ways – momentous and mockable – that public bathroom just don’t work.” Lezlie also highlights the efforts of PHLUSH and groups we partner with across North America to fix this situation.
We’ve partnered with Jack Sim of the World Toilet Organization, to launch the annual awareness campaign in period leading up to World Toilet Day on November 19th. Please join us to Honor Our Cleaners How? Take a selfie with the person who cleans a restroom you use and post it on social media with the hashtag #HONOROURCLEANERS. Or celebrate their work with flowers or balloons and a personal note taped to a restroom mirror. Then share photo with us!
Finally, PHLUSH has been invited to join the Community Hygiene Facility Roundtable to discuss options available to meet community toilet and hygiene needs in Jefferson County, Washington. The Roundtable brings together local officials from five government agencies with nonprofit specialists under the collaborative leadership of EDC Team Jefferson. We will be sharing the PHLUSH Public Toilet Advocacy Toolkit and results of our work with the cities of Portland and Seattle.
We’re all in this together, aren’t we? We all poop and pee. How about joining PHLUSH as a donor or volunteer?
At a Nonprofit Fair in early October 6th, we helped launch the online Give Jefferson campaign. It was great to meet staff and volunteers from dozens of Jefferson County nonprofits and to learn about their work and opportunities to collaborate. We’d like to give a huge shout out to the Jefferson Community Foundation: They’re ” building a caring and connected community – both now and for future generations – through engaged philanthropy.” They’ve developed a cool new platform for online giving. Please consider supporting PHLUSH work in our local community.
Finally, PHLUSH has been invited to join the Community Hygiene Facility Roundtable to discuss options available to meet community toilet and hygiene needs in Jefferson County, Washington. The Roundtable brings together local officials from five government agencies with nonprofit specialists under the collaborative leadership of EDC Team Jefferson. We will be sharing the PHLUSH Public Toilet Advocacy Toolkit and results of our work with the cities of Portland and Seattle.