As a way to learn some basic crochet techniques, members of my craft club have been making wash clothes like this one. We plan to make them and then give them to a local women’s shelter. When we first started making them, I mentioned at one club meeting that we might be able to buy some soap to go with the wash clothes, and one of our members chimed in that she had been saving little soap and lotion sets from her many travels. She had a huge bag and would bring them to the next meeting.

This got me to thinking about asking other people to also save those soaps you get when you visit hotels but don’t actually use, and I put the word out. Now along with her massive donation, we have had a lot of other people from school give use their travel soap stashes. In fact, we have way more soap then wash clothes!

At one of our next meetings, we will organize as much as we can of them and package them along with the clothes in zip lock bags to give to the shelter. I plan to keep doing this, save the soaps people donated and give them to this shelter and possibly others.

What I love about this idea is that we are using items that many people can donate without any cost to them, and often we pick this kind of thing up when we travel but never end up using them. Plus, members get to learn some crochet and make something really useful even though they are just learning how to crochet for the first time. Win-win!