Sasha Meyer and other Notre Dame students are using big hearts to care for the homeless community in South Bend.

Meyer, a sophomore business major at the University of Notre Dame, has created her own not-for-profit organization entitled “The Heartening,” aimed at fighting the lack of clean drinking water confronting homeless in the South Bend, Indiana area.

The premise is simple — for every reusable, recyclable and filterable $10 water bottle the organization sells, another is donated to a homeless person in need. In addition to being BPA free, the bottles are also labeled with inspirational, water-themed quotes like, “Live a life well-filled” and “Don’t reflect on your mistakes. Water reflects what is most important — YOU!,” Meyer said.

Meyer started the project during her senior year of high school after working at a homeless shelter in Santa Monica, California. Due to the shortage of clean drinking water in Southern California, the shelter was unable to provide more than one plastic water bottle to each visitor. Upset by this fact, Meyer took matters into her own hands as she began distributing water to homeless people herself, even taking the time to hand-write inspirational quotes on the plastic of the bottles.

When it came time to name the project, Meyer was inspired by the way the venture made her feel.

“I was describing to my friend how I felt so disheartened to tell (the homeless) that they couldn’t have more than one bottle,” she said. “I wanted to feel the opposite, I guess, so I coined it The Heartening.”

Although The Heartening has its roots in California, Meyer knew she wanted to continue the project while at college in Indiana.

Meyer said that when she got to Notre Dame, she pitched the idea to the head of the social impact club. After it was accepted, she worked on getting the idea out so by the second semester other students could join.

BaseND, the social impact club to which Meyer pitched her idea, is a business and social entrepreneurship group that provides funding for projects and organizations dreamt up by Notre Dame students. The funding process is competitive, and something Marne Fairhurst, a business major and sophomore member of The Heartening’s marketing team, deemed too scary for a first-year student.

“As a freshman, I would not have had the guts to do that. It’s super impressive,” said Fairhurst. “She’s one of the only freshmen that pitched an idea to this club. I totally admire that tenacity about her.”

Meyer said the club now has more than 30 members and is only getting bigger.

Audrey Grewe, treasurer for The Heartening and a sophomore philosophy/mathematics major, said the spirit of Notre Dame encourages such student civic engagement.

“Notre Dame is obviously a catholic institution, so even if people don’t subscribe to that, there’s still this energy of people wanting to help other people,” said Grewe.

The Heartening is currently its own entity, but in years to come, Meyer said she would love to see the organization spread to other college campuses, and maybe even secure a sponsorship from a large water bottle company.

“I would love to present the idea to places like CamelBak,” said Meyer. “That would subsidize the one-for-one aspect of our organization, but be mutually beneficial for their organization.”

Published on September 2, 2015 at 9:42 pm

Contact Brigid: brkenned@syr.edu