Getting Clean: Soap with Hope
Our Story
Getting Clean started as a volunteer project formed by recovering addicts helping each other and the local community to get clean and stay clean.
We provide peer-to-peer support to people in drug and alcohol recovery by giving them a purpose and opportunity to help other people and our planet. Following on from our volunteering programmes in Leeds, we have developed into a not-for-profit company, making and selling soap. Getting Clean’s ‘Soap with Hope’ is made by recovering addicts in therapeutic soap-making workshops. All of the proceeds from our sales are used to help us achieve our key objectives:
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Support people in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction
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Creating a cleaner and greener local community
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Provide our volunteers with pathways to employment
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Promote environmentalism and sustainability
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Promote abstinence-based recovery
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Change the public perception of addiction
Getting Clean clean means more than stopping taking drugs. We take the teachings of addiction recovery and extend them to environmental issues to show how the therapeutic value of ‘getting clean’ relates not only to our bodies and minds but also to our streets and local communities. Besides making soap, we continue with our regular volunteering projects, such as community clean ups, conservation work and residential repair jobs for vulnerable citizens. We aim to educate and inspire all members of the community to lead cleaner and more sustainable lifestyles – whether that means recycling plastic or abstinence from substances.
Our Work
Here are some examples of Getting Clean’s work in Leeds:
Conservation projects
Our volunteers are seeding and weeding to make our communities cleaner and greener.
Getting Clean has been involved in various conservation efforts from wild flower meadows in South Leeds to habitat preservation in the Yorkshire Dales.
Conservation programmes give our volunteers a sense of purpose and environmentalism is core to the ethos of Getting Clean.
Soap-making workshops
The soap we sell is made in regular workshops where our volunteers come together to make soap, gain skills and provide support to one another.
Making soap provides both a social and therapeutic experience for our volunteers. This is why our product really is “soap with hope”!
The more soap we sell, the more volunteers we can support.
Our plan is to sell more soap so that we can employ volunteers and pay them for their time and work.
Community Clean Ups & Repairs
Getting Clean volunteers have led numerous community clean up activities and residential repairs around West and South Leeds as well as the City Centre. We’ve filled countless purple bin bags provided by Leeds City Council and we recycle as much we can.
We treat litter picking as pleasure not punishment! We use the clean up events as an opportunity to give back to the community and support one another. We believe that cleaning our streets helps us to get clean and keep clean too!
“Getting Clean is a fantastic organisation. Built upon strong relationships and mutuality, they are supporting and empowering one another, and making a real difference in the wider community from community action. Their innovative and can-do approach is (or should be!) a model for grassroots groups, and I’m delighted to be working with them on a number of local projects.”
Councillor Ed Carlisle,
Green Party, South Leeds
