Hotel bed linen may conjure up pleasant but also some abhorrent memories for most travellers.
But through a collaboration with Marriott International and non-profit organisation Royal Kidz, old bed linen helped a school in Cape Town.
About 320 children at Klipheuwel Primary school in Durbanville received new school shirts, jackets, shoes and socks made from repurposing hotel bed sheets.
Marriott International and Royal Kidz worked together over the past 18 months, handing over a total of 3 000 similar donations to date to schools in under-served communities.
The project began when Marriott was looking for local solutions to repurpose the large volume of bed sheets that are replaced frequently, before any wear and tear, by its hotels.
The Sheets for Shirts initiative got off the ground when the founder of Royal Kidz Danolene Johanessen realised she could create a “circular economy” by fashioning kids school shirts from the white sheets.
To date, about 700 sheets were repurposed into 3 000 school shirts. This innovation led to R1.2-million funded by the Marriott International Cape Town office that enabled Johanessen to start Restore SA, a social enterprise employing local seamstresses and dedicating 40% of its profits to fund the Royal Kidz uniform project. Restore SA makes the school shirts for the programme, as well as other products for sale.
The latest donation to Klipheuwel Primary School also includes 320 pairs of new school shoes, made possible through the Shoes for the Future project run by the Marriott Business Council for South Africa. Hotel guests have been part of this drive by making donations. About €1 000 (R17 947) was raised by the Sheraton Frankfurt Airport Hotel for Shoes for the Future.
Restore SA has also been producing masks from Marriott International hotel sheets and distributing them in disadvantaged communities. This transformation of waste from the tourism and travel industry into tangible social benefits has opened doors for Johanessen, who has since secured funding from the Industrial Development Corporation to further develop her business and programmes.
Volker Heiden, Marriott International’s area vice president for Sub Saharan Africa said it was great to have a sustainable solution for the hotel group's sheets and enable these children to feel confident in their school community.
"This donation to Klipheuwel Primary schoolchildren has been made possible due to the collection of sheets from Marriott International properties across South Africa, as well as additional support from Marriott International’s sustainability and social impact platform, Serve 360: doing good in every direction," he said.