In 1996, RGP hired Günther Hausen as a consultant to help RGP grow its business. Shortly after, a mutual friendship developed between the principals of RGP and Günther. Günther became a Board Member of RGP later that year and remained a close friend, advisor and Board Member until his premature death in 2007.
More than any of Günther’s many respectable attributes and contributions, he was a humanitarian. Günther was active in the Middletown Rotary Club and amongst other self-giving projects, he spearheaded the project ‘Health, Pure Water and Literacy for Cambodia’. The project was initiated to bring clean water to Cambodians in an effort to save lives. Günther was responsible for raising money for the purchase and installation of more than 2700 bio-sand water filtration systems to date. His project lives on through the efforts of the International Rotary Club and more information can be found at www.waterforcambodia.org.
In discussing this product with the principals of RGP, Günther brought to their attention the invention of a portable water filter that one could wear as a necklace. This filter, know as the LifeStraw provides an individual in an impoverished setting, the possibility of filtering water for their individual consumption for up to a year.
This simple, inexpensive device saves lives!
RGP believes that a company has the responsibility to contribute however possible and within its means to which can improve our society and peoples ability to improve themselves. In 2008, the high-school daughter of a principal of RGP in Sweden needed to start a temporary, small-business as a requirement of her studies. After pondering the possibilities, she and her classmates undertook the business concept to educate the public of the benefits of the LifeStraw and raised donations to purchase LifeStraws to be sent to the Cambodian people Günther Hausen was determined to help. The Swedish youth company, know as PureLife UF, was in existence for only a few months. During that time, the students gained knowledge which each of them will carry with them for a lifetime while serving a greater good of donating a device that actual saved lives.
RGP sponsored PureLife by donating a LifeStraw in the name of the purchaser of RGP products during selected tradeshows. In the few months of Purelife’s commercial existence, RGP was able to assist PureLife UF in donating over 1000 LifeStraws, distributed to needy individuals in Cambodia.
Completing their requirements, Purelife UF was dis-banded in May 2009. RGP was enriched with its experience of helping these 5 young entrepreneurs giving back to society. That is why RGP has vowed to continue to support the LifeStraw project.
In May of 2009, RGP developed a relationship with Vestergaard Frandsen of Denmark, the manufacturer of the LifeStraw and RGP will continue to donate, in the name of individual purchasers of RGP’s products, a LifeStraw for each stool purchased at selected tradeshows.
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