CARROLL COUNTY, Md. — Kim Beatty and Janice Campbell first opened Goose Ridge Soaps in 2018 with the intentions of helping people in their community.
"We try to make our soaps pretty and smell good, but that's not really our primary focus. Our primary focus is on solving a problem," says Kim Beatty.
Their soaps help with things like severe dry skin and eczema and even sensitive skin.
Now they are making an even bigger impact beyond just skin.
"When we decided to take this from a hobby to a business, one of the things that was really important to us was giving back to our community," says Beatty.
Goose Ridge Soaps has partnered with Eco Soaps, an organization that collects soap scraps and sends them to impoverished countries.
"And then those scraps are shipped overseas to recycling centers in Asia and Africa where there are 175 women employed across, I think it's 5 countries, to sort through the soap scraps to, um, put them through an extruding process and then turn them into usable brand new soap bars that are then distributed through, I think it's 133 countries worldwide, including places in the U.S., so that underdeveloped countries have access to soap and hygiene education." says Beatty.
She says it all started when they found themselves with a ton of scraps they couldn't do anything with.
"When a soap maker makes soaps, a lot of times you'll have little scrap pieces on the end that aren't really usable for anything or when you're beveling soaps, after you've cut them, just so there's the corners are nice, look nice, you've got all this excess. So what do you do with it? We had been saving it. We had boxes and boxes and boxes of things in the back room that we've just been saving it because we didn't feel right about just throwing it in the landfill," says Beatty.
Kim Beatty says it has been one of the best decisions they have made, and it means the world to her knowing she is helping others.
"We've received so much support from our community, and we firmly believe that we are all meant to lift each other up," she says.
The next shipment of soap scraps from Goose Ridge Soaps will go out in early June.
