8 West is a transitional employment + supportive housing program located in San Diego, California. We employ homeless youth to produce the highest-quality, ultra-premium handcrafted soap you've ever seen!

Our mission is deeply rooted in the belief that solutions to end homelessness must be sustainable to make a real difference. Accordingly, our "homeless to hopeful" model is based on an outreach strategy that seeks to embrace, cultivate and propel the homeless youth in our community. And we're making it happen RIGHT NOW ... are you ready to give a #handup?

Have you ever stopped to think how many homeless youth live on the streets in your community? Where do they sleep at night? How do they find food and medical care to nourish and heal their bodies? How do they get off the streets?

Here in San Diego, California, we have more than 3,000 homeless youth living and sleeping on our streets. Many arrive here from all over the United States. At 8 West, we've been working hard to forge relationships with these individuals in the homeless community since 2008. We understand the outlook of the homeless youth we work with every week. They feel abandoned. Forgotten. Discarded by the world. And for far too many, the chance to redeem themselves and re-join a community filled with hope seems like an unobtainable goal. Unfortunately, successfully transitioning off the streets is no small feat for these young people.

8 West was founded as a non-profit transitional employment + housing program that seeks to sustainably end youth homelessness. With the #handup approach in our "homeless to hopeful" model, we provide jobs (as many of them as we can), safe housing (for as many as we can) and social, health and educational support for homeless youth who are ready to change their lives for the better - forever.

Our Artisans produce the highest-quality handcrafted soap you will find on the market. The next time you find yourself around a conventional bar of soap (or a bottle of liquid soap), take a moment to read the ingredients. Snap a photo and post it to the 8 West page on Instagram or Facebook.

And try to read the ingredients aloud. The differences in quality and sustainability between these products and the 8 West premium bar soap are astounding. Other soap products are made almost entirely of harsh and semi-harsh chemicals and compounds that are produced in a laboratory. On the other hand, 8 West premium bar soap is made entirely of the highest grades of oils and butters, always all natural and always great for your skin.

We're raising $500,000 to expand the scale, scope and impact of our program. Every dollar committed to 8 West results in more jobs, more housing and more opportunity for homeless youth living on the streets. We will make a HUGE DIFFERENCE in ending youth homeless whether we exceed our capital goal, meet it, or fall short. We're all-in on making this happen ... but we need your help!

We have supercool perks and all donations are tax deductible (we're a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, but please consult with a tax professional regarding your individual tax deduction eligibility). We also have a world-class team of creative, marketing and PR talent providing pro bono advisory support. With their guidance, we expect 8 West operations to be fully-funded through working capital (requiring no further capital infusions) at the conclusion of this campaign.

Our goal is to successfully graduate over 100 homeless youth through our 18-month transitional program by 2020. The tangible impact of the program is seeing self-sufficient graduates go on to employment and housing opportunities that leverage their interests and skills. 8 West is a game changer and we welcome your involvement in helping those most in need.

Play a role today in helping to launch this sustainable #handup model that can have such a tremendous impact on so many homeless youth. And in addition to your support, please share our story with all your friends and family to help us meet our goal.

Buy 8 West soap today ... www.8west.org ... where Youth Homelessness Ends.