Soap for Hope Project shows how even small gestures can make a difference for underserved community members

    ALBANY, Georgia (Albany Herald) -- As the Soap for Hope Project wraps up its Kiss-A-Goat competition, its founders plan to expand their efforts – not just in helping the homeless community but in reaching out to other underserved areas as well.

On Friday, the project wrapped up its Kiss-A-Goat competition during which community members raised money for Soap for Hope projects. The person who raised the most money kissed a goat during a livestream. Chris Ketchum, one of the founders, said they wanted to bring light-hearted fun into fundraising efforts for a serious cause.

“We’ve had such incredible success with it that I believe it’s probably going to become an annual event,” he said. “It’s seen us be able to do things with the project that we haven’t been able to do in prior years.”

The Soap for Hope Project was founded in 2020 by Mandi and Chris Ketchum. It’s an initiative to provide essential care packages and acts of kindness to the homeless community and others in need throughout southwest Georgia and beyond. The Ketchums fill drawstring bags with snacks, water, socks, underwear, hygiene products and more essentials. They also fill bags with entertainment: games, cards, notebooks and pens. They then go out into the community and distribute these bags to people who need them.

“So when you go out and you talk to people in that community, you have the benefit of asking them questions: What could you use? What do you really need out here, what do you really miss?” Chris Ketchum said. “Then, you take that information and you work on next year's project with that.”

He said Soap for Hope literally sprouted from a dream his wife had two weeks before their honeymoon. The two were headed to St. Pete, Fla., where Chris used to live and had talked about that community’s large homeless population. Mandi told Chris she dreamed that they were handing out care packages to the community.

“And I said, ‘Well, OK, wouldn’t that be fun to go hand out care packages on our honeymoon – kind of like a honeymoon with a purpose,’” he said.

So, that’s what they did. And when they first opened their Old Goat Soap Company in Bluffton, they intertwined the two to create Soap for Hope.

“It’s just been one of the greatest things that we’ve been able to do with our business,” Chris said.

Chris and Mandi carry the bags with them wherever they go. If they notice a person asleep or standing on a road side, they’ll pull over and offer them a bag and some company, sharing a coffee and some fellowship. Chris will visit homeless encampments in the woods and under bridges – wherever he needs to go to help people who can benefit from the packages.

They’ve served homeless individuals in Albany and Macon, as well as communities in cities they travel to. Over the years, Chris said he’s recognized that everybody needs help at some point in their lives, just at varying degrees.

“One thing I've learned is that there's no defining event that takes somebody from what we would consider a normal life into a life of homelessness,” he said.

Ketchum said he’s spoken to people whose struggles with drugs, alcohol or gambling brought them to a homelessness situation or people with medical debt or even those who have been laid off from a regular 9-to-5 job and were left unable to pay rent.

Chris said the hardest thing for many homeless people is that everything they can do to try to overcome their situation requires an address – filling out a job application, applying for Medicaid or SNAP benefits. He said when they don’t have one to put down, it makes them look like a credit risk.

“I can't give somebody an apartment; I can't give somebody a job, but I can help make life outside a little more comfortable,” he said.

As the Ketchums became more involved in helping the homeless community, they began branching out and finding ways to help other community members. They’ve donated clothes to a family who lost their house in a fire, provided groceries to families in need, put together gift baskets for retirement homes and filled snack baskets for families in local hospital waiting rooms.

Chris said they’ve been able to expand those efforts in 2024 and were fundraising to continue expanding into 2025 with monthly projects.

While the Kiss-A-Goat fundraiser has ended, the Ketchums said there are still ways to help out. They always accept donations, whether monetary or with items like socks. They’re also looking for volunteers to pass out bags. Chris said to follow their social media pages to learn about opportunities.

“Understand that help doesn't have to be anything physical,” he said. “If they see somebody who's down on their luck, tell them hi, look at them, smile, acknowledge them. That can go farther than a lot of things that even come in our bags.”