Las Vegas Sands Teams up to Build Wellness Kits for Community Preparedness

LAS VEGAS, Aug. 28, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Las Vegas Sands is collaborating with social enterprise Clean the World and humanitarian organization American Red Cross for a property-wide hygiene and comfort kit build to support disaster and social relief efforts. This will be the company's first build with American Red Cross and its fifth annual effort to build a total of 80,000 hygiene kits worldwide that will improve the health and well-being of populations in need with Clean the World.

More than 500 of volunteers will come together at The Venetian, The Palazzo, and Sands Expo on September 22 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. to assemble 35,000 hygiene and comfort kits. Volunteers will work together to build 15,000 hygiene kits for Clean the World and 20,000 comfort kits for the American Red Cross. The kits will be filled with basic hygiene amenities including soap, shampoo, conditioner, lotion/bath gel, a toothbrush, toothpaste, a washcloth, and an inspirational notecard. The hygiene kit's soaps are collected from Clean the World's hospitality partners, including LVS properties around the world, and then recycled through Clean the World's soap sanitation and processing equipment.

Through Sands Cares, the company's global corporate giving program, LVS is committed to making the communities where they operate a better place to live by providing resources and solutions to the issues most important. By taking an active approach on community preparedness, the company is dedicated to providing aid during times of disaster and emergencies. In continuing to support community resiliency throughout Southern Nevada, Las Vegas Sands Team Members will engage in various volunteer efforts with the Red Cross of Southern Nevada that will include assembling comfort kits— provided to victims of home fires, or other disasters, that might be left without basic hygiene needs—and organizing and participating in a company-wide blood drive. Another vital part of a resilient community is fulfilling the need for blood. In the U.S., someone needs blood every two seconds.

"Our partnership with Las Vegas Sands will provide hope to those impacted by disasters and hope for those who are in need of life-saving blood. We are grateful for Las Vegas Sands' community efforts and know that their simple acts of kindness can make a big difference in the lives of one very strong Las Vegas community," said Alan Diskin, executive director of the American Red Cross.

In 2017, LVS and Clean the World came together to provide a source for hygiene relief to those experiencing homelessness in Las Vegas, the company's headquarters. Sands Cares Fresh Start Mobile Showers Powered by Clean the World was launched to provide access to a private shower, hygiene supplies, and other resources to the homeless community. The traveling hygiene unit is the first of its kind in the Southern Nevada community and has provided more than 5,000 showers and hygiene kits to users. 

"Each year, we look forward to coming together not only as a company, but as a larger community to bring awareness and help, whether it's through access to a simple necessity such as soap or in-kind support," said Ron Reese, senior vice president of global communications and corporate affairs at Las Vegas Sands. "We have a responsibility to all of the communities where our Integrated Resorts are located worldwide to ensure we are doing our part to help improve the way of life for all members of the community. Our continued partnership with Clean the World has allowed us to become ambassadors in hygiene education and most importantly, has shown us just how much of an impact of our efforts make when we work together to find how our own resources and abilities can be of service to the issues that our community members are most vulnerable to."

The global hygiene kit build will take place between August and December 2018 at LVS properties in Macao, Singapore, Bethlehem and Las Vegas. After the completion of this year's build events, LVS properties will have created a total of 500,000 hygiene kits since its partnership with Clean the World to bring awareness of its mission to promote good health and well-being around the globe through improved access to soap and other hygiene products.  The global kit build events also provide financial support to Clean the World – for each kit assembled, LVS contributes $1 to the Clean the World Foundation to accelerate its mission in two critical areas, ongoing hygiene education and disaster response.

"Many families cannot afford the basic hygiene products each of us take for granted. The annual Las Vegas Sands Global Hygiene Kit build has allowed us to distribute over a half a million life-saving kits to individuals and families experiencing homelessness in local communities," said Shawn Seipler, founder and CEO of Clean the World.  "Overall, Las Vegas Sands has contributed over $2 million to our mission, allowing us to expand our programs both in the United States and in Asia. Through the generous support of partners like Las Vegas Sands, we are able to dramatically reduce the spread of hygiene-related illnesses and save millions of lives globally."

For the past seven years, LVS and Clean the World have collaborated to promote its hygiene mission. Clean the World has recycled over 605,000 pounds (302 tons) of waste from LVS properties into more than 2.6 million bars of soap – material that otherwise would have gone to landfill.  LVS' support of Clean the World is part of the company's global corporate giving program, Sands Cares. For more information about Sands Cares and key initiatives, please visit www.sandscares.sands.com.    

About Las Vegas Sands Corp.

Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE: LVS) is the world's pre-eminent developer and operator of world-class Integrated Resorts that feature luxury hotels; best-in-class gaming; retail; dining and entertainment; Meetings, Incentives, Convention and Exhibition (MICE) facilities; and many other leisure and business amenities.  We pioneered the MICE-driven Integrated Resort, a unique, industry-leading and extremely successful model that serves both the leisure and business tourism markets.

Our properties include The Venetian and The Palazzo resorts and Sands Expo in Las Vegas, Sands Bethlehem in Eastern Pennsylvania, and the iconic Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. Through majority ownership in Sands China Ltd., LVS owns a portfolio of properties on the Cotai Strip in Macao, including The Venetian Macao, The Plaza and Four Seasons Hotel Macao, Sands Cotai Central and The Parisian Macao, as well as the Sands Macao on the Macao Peninsula.

LVS is dedicated to being a good corporate citizen, anchored by the core tenets of delivering a great working environment for 50,000 team members worldwide, driving impact through its Sands Cares corporate giving program and leading innovation with the company's award-winning Sands ECO360 global sustainability program. To learn more, please visit www.sands.com.

About Clean the World

Clean the World is a social enterprise dedicated to the mission of saving millions of lives around the world while simultaneously diverting hotel waste from landfills. Clean the World operates soap recycling centers in Orlando, Las Vegas, Hong Kong, and Punta Cana and leads a "Global Hygiene Revolution" to distribute recycled soap and hygiene products from more than 5,000 hotel and resort partners. The organization benefits children and families in countries with a high pre-adolescent death rate due to acute respiratory infection (pneumonia) and diarrheal diseases (cholera) – which are two of the top killers of children under the age of five. Since 2009, more than 45 million bars of Clean the World soap have been distributed in over 127 countries. Clean the World has served over 10 million individuals through its soap distribution and hygiene education programs. In addition, Clean the World provides hygiene kits to relief organizations throughout North America. More information: CleantheWorld.org.

About the Red Cross

The American Red Cross shelters, feeds and provides emotional support to victims of disasters; supplies nearly half of the nation's blood; teaches lifesaving skills; provides international humanitarian aid; and supports military members and their families. The Red Cross is a charitable organization — not a government agency — and depends on volunteers and the generosity of the American public to perform its mission. For more information, visit www.redcross.org or join our blog at http://blog.redcross.org.

Contacts:
Kristin Koca
[email protected]
702-414-3218

SOURCE Las Vegas Sands