“At AirDoctor, we understand the challenges spaces like the CatCafe Lounge face with air quality, particularly with pet hair and dander in the air. Our donation of air purifiers is a step towards solving this problem,” said Peter Spiegel, Co-CEO at Ideal Living.

Katie Williams, Co-CEO of Ideal Living adds, “We are proud to see our technology making a real impact, ensuring cleaner air and a healthier environment for everyone in the cafe. It’s fulfilling to know that our products do more than purify the air; they also provide peace of mind.”

Ideal Living’s impact program has donated more than $xxx,000 to organizations aligned with its mission to provide affordable and accessible solutions that protect people’s right to clean air, clean water and a solid foundation for wellness. AirDoctor is deeply committed to continuing this journey, making a significant difference in the lives of others.

ABOUT THE CATCAFE LOUNGE

THE CatCafe Lounge is a non-profit cafe that is the first of its kind in Los Angeles, CA. There, you can order drinks, play with dozens of cats, and if you fall in love with some of the kittens, you can adopt! Every contribution goes back to their mission of creating positive moments for these cats. To learn more or how to plan a visit, check out their website: https://www.catcafelounge.com/. 

ABOUT IDEAL LIVING

Ideal Living is a Los Angeles-based company that invents, markets and distributes innovative health, wellness and home environment products to significantly improve the quality of life of individuals and communities. Ideal Living is on a mission to ensure everyone has the right to clean air, clean water and a solid foundation for wellness.

The post AirDoctor by Ideal Living Donates Air Purifiers to the CatCafe Lounge in Los Angeles first appeared on Ideal Living.

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Ideal Living’s impact program has donated more than $xxx,000 to organizations aligned with its mission to provide affordable and accessible solutions that protect people’s right to clean air, clean water and a solid foundation for wellness. The AirDoctor team is honored and privileged to have a product that is able to help those in need and to have been able to help donate air purifiers to residents of Lahaina. 

ABOUT TRANSFORM OUR WORLD HAWAII 

Transform our World Hawaii is a non-profit organization that exists to build a transformational culture and community of Aloha (love). They are currently accepting donations to support our local churches in their efforts to assist in the Lahaina Disaster Recovery efforts. To find out more, visit https://www.towhawaii.org/ 

ABOUT IDEAL LIVING 

Ideal Living is a Los Angeles-based company that invents, markets and distributes innovative health, wellness and home environment products to significantly improve the quality of life of individuals and communities. Ideal Living is on a mission to ensure everyone has the right to clean air, clean water and a solid foundation for wellness.

The post AirDoctor by Ideal Living Donates Air Purifiers and Filters to 102 Families in Lahaina, Maui first appeared on Ideal Living.

The post AirDoctor by Ideal Living Donates Air Purifiers and Filters to 102 Families in Lahaina, Maui appeared first on Ideal Living.

More than 2 million people living in the United States are living without running water or plumbing.  

Indigenous communities, like the Navajo Nation, are the most hard hit: One in three Navajo families spend part of their day hauling water home, and they pay 67 times more for the water they haul versus piped water. This is just one of many reasons why we have partnered with DigDeep to help provide access to clean running water. DigDeep is a national human rights nonprofit serving Americans living without running water or sanitation at home.  

We have donated $50,000 to support DigDeep’s Navajo Water Project, which provides clean water to those most in need on the Navajo Nation reservation in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. The reservation is home to 173,000 people, 30% of whom are living without running water or a toilet in their homes. 

“Everyone has a right to pure water, clean air, and a solid foundation for wellness. We want to raise awareness of this issue and be water warriors for the greater good,” said Katie Williams, Co-CEO at Ideal Living. “We strive to uplift families and communities through access to clean, healthy drinking water, which is why we are excited to partner with DigDeep to fight for these basic human rights and serve those most affected by adverse environmental conditions.”

DigDeep’s Navajo Water Project is a community-managed utility alternative that brings running water to homes that are not connected to piped water or sewer lines. The Navajo Water Project is Indigenous-led and Indigenous-staffed, run by Navajo Water Project Executive Director and Diné activist Emma Robbins.

“Our work is driven by community,” said Emma Robbins, “We are proud to hire locally, design solutions that are unique to the residents we serve, and partner with other community organizations to tackle this challenge. It’s truly a team effort because, in Navajo culture, it’s imperative that we care for our elders, the land, and future generations.”

Please watch this video featuring Emma Robbins, in which she shares how DigDeep has helps provide running water to the Navajo Nation through their Navajo Water Project.

The post AquaTru and Its Parent Company Ideal Living Donate $50,000 to Support DigDeep’s Navajo Water Project first appeared on Ideal Living.

The post AquaTru and Its Parent Company Ideal Living Donate $50,000 to Support DigDeep’s Navajo Water Project appeared first on Ideal Living.

Ideal Living will donate 10% of net proceeds from AirDoctor and AquaTru sales and $3,000 from a fundraiser over a 10-day campaign to Direct Relief, a nonprofit that provides medical supplies and immediate relief to those in and around Ukraine. Direct Relief has delivered over 30 tons of requested medical aid to Ukraine since the war started, from oxygen concentrators to critical care medicines, while preparing to offer continued aid for the longer-term impacts of the war on those displaced by the conflict. 

“We are heartbroken by the senseless violence and atrocities that have become more visible by the day and are deeply concerned about the growing humanitarian crisis that is unfolding. While we normally focus our community impact efforts within the United States, the foundation of basic human rights and freedoms has been shattered for the people of Ukraine, and we feel it is our responsibility to do our small part to help at this time,” said Founder and Co-CEO of Ideal Living Katie Williams.

Ideal Living’s impact program has donated more than $250,000 to organizations aligned with its mission to provide affordable and accessible solutions that protect people’s rights to clean air, clean water and a solid foundation for wellness. This most recent donation to Direct Relief increases and extends its impact globally to reduce suffering in the region. 

ABOUT DIRECT RELIEF

Direct Relief is a nonprofit organization working directly with Ukraine’s Ministry of Health and other local, on-the-ground partners and NGOs to provide critical medical aid and medicine to people still in Ukraine and those who have fled the conflict to neighboring countries. Founded in 1948 in response to the humanitarian crisis in Europe in the aftermath of World War II, Direct Relief roots are firmly established in providing relief in this region. 

ABOUT IDEAL LIVING 

Ideal Living is a Los Angeles-based company that invents, markets and distributes innovative health, wellness and home environment products to significantly improve the quality of life of individuals and communities. Ideal Living is on a mission to ensure everyone has the right to clean air, clean water and a solid foundation for wellness. 

The post Ideal Living Announces $38,000 to Support Ukraine Relief Efforts first appeared on Ideal Living.

The post Ideal Living Announces $38,000 to Support Ukraine Relief Efforts appeared first on Ideal Living.

COVID-19 has brought social and racial injustice and inequities to the forefront of public health. 

In fact, populations living in areas with high levels of air pollution are at significantly greater risk for infection and death from COVID-19. Our founders knew that we could help these communities and bring them safe, clean air at a critical time.

During the pandemic, we recommitted to our mission and brought AirDoctor purifiers to communities in need, many of which were also impacted by wildfires, in our home state of California. To help, we donated more than 200 air purifiers to families, teachers, and medical professionals throughout the state. (AirDoctor air purifiers remove 99.97% of live COVID virus).*  

When it became apparent just how urgent the PPE situation was, we leveraged our own manufacturing to develop FDA-approved KN95 masks under Emergency Use Authorization. In 2020, we shipped 75,000+ masks to hospitals and healthcare facilities across the United States without any markup, and donated another 45,000+ masks to healthcare facilities, food banks, homeless shelters, and community organizations helping those on the front lines of the pandemic. 

We sat down with Ideal Living’s co-founders, Katie Williams and Peter Spiegel, to talk about the donations and why they see safe, clean air as a basic human right. 

Why is safe, pure indoor air important to our health?

Katie Williams: Think about this: You can live without food for weeks or months; you can live without water for a couple of days. You can’t live without air for more than a few minutes. Oxygen is a kind of nutrition that’s vital to keeping you alive. The first act of life is a baby’s first breath. Yet, we don’t often think about what else we’re taking into our lungs when we breathe. 

Breathing polluted air can be equivalent to smoking a pack a day of cigarettes. There are real health impacts on our physical and mental health. Indoor air can be up to 100x more polluted than outdoor air – simply due to everyday living and the contaminants created by items we have inside our homes, such as stoves, gas dryers, water heaters, cleaning products, building materials, and personal care products, to name a few. 

While we may not be able to see pollutants and contaminants in our air, the reality is that they are there and impact our health with every breath we take.  

How has COVID-19 changed the conversation around air purifiers and the importance of safe indoor air? 

Peter Spiegel: People started to realize that there are things in the air that we can’t see that can make us very sick. COVID-19 is one obvious example. The smoke and pollution caused by widespread wildfires is another example that is impacting people from coast to coast. 

These harmful contaminants require serious, dependable solutions.  That’s why AirDoctor invests in rigorous, scientific testing to prove that it is more than 99.97% effective in removing live COVID-19, smoke, and other contaminants from the air.*

Of course, these are just the obvious forms of air pollution. Katie mentioned others that we don’t think about that are equally insidious. People started to understand something that we have known at Ideal Living for a long time: that indoor air can be up to 100 times more polluted than outdoor air. To return to some semblance of normalcy, people wanted to purify the air in their homes, churches, community centers, and other places. It’s a sea change in how we view air quality.

What COVID-19 has also made visible is the stark inequalities that impact people’s health and wellbeing. The odds are stacked against underserved communities. That, like the quality of the air we breathe, is no longer invisible. 

Beyond air purifiers, what motivated you to contribute to the KN95 mask scarcity? 

KW: As the pandemic unfolded, our team was heartbroken to see doctors and nurses on the front lines begging for masks. How could we NOT do something to help?  We knew that we would find a way to get KN95 masks thanks to our extensive manufacturing partnerships and expertise in filters which use the same materials.   

We were shocked to see that in this time of great need, some companies reacted with greed– price gouging, and selling to the highest bidders. Only the richest communities and institutions could afford to purchase masks that were going at ten times their typical price. And the government was no help–it seemed to have been caught empty-handed, doling out a fraction of masks to just a couple states.  So, we didn’t wait around for someone else to take action – we leapt into action ourselves because it was the right thing to do. 

What did you do to produce KN95 masks?

PS: We already knew how to mobilize quickly and execute things on a large scale, so we were ready for this challenge. In California, our sourcing department barely slept for a week as they worked through the logistics. Our air purifier factory almost effortlessly converted to making masks instead (it’s interesting to note that the material used in masks is also used in our air purifier). Then, we had to jump through many regulatory hurdles to get them into the United States and into the hands of the people who needed them. 

Throughout the effort, we leveraged our ability to innovate, pivot, move nimbly, and always engage in continuous improvement. 

How did you identify places to donate and send masks to?

KW: Part of our purpose and mission is to support people in need. 

We turned to our existing healthcare partners to determine the areas of greatest need. Our employees also made recommendations to us to help build out our network of donations. We gave masks to healthcare facilities, food banks, homeless shelters, and community organizations helping those on the front lines of the pandemic. It was really powerful to see our community come together to help others, support others, and make change in our world. 

Our core belief is that everyone has the right to clean indoor air, and we are committed to bringing that clean air to those most in need. We extend our gratitude to our employees who brought this ethos to life through this effort. COVID will continue to be a challenge to daily life but we are happy that our AirDoctor family of products can help us all breathe easier.

*AirDoctor 3000 was tested & proven to remove up to 99.99% of a range of bacteria and viruses, including the H1N1 virus in third-party testing. Independent, third-party testing by MRIGlobal demonstrated AirDoctor 3000 removed 99.97% of the live SARS-CoV-2 virus from the air in a test chamber in under 90 seconds. AirDoctor does not claim to kill/prevent transmission of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19). AirDoctor recommends using PPE & following directions of the CDC & other government authorities.

The post Clearing the Air: Reflecting on COVID-19, Clean Air, and Health Inequities first appeared on Ideal Living.

The post Clearing the Air: Reflecting on COVID-19, Clean Air, and Health Inequities appeared first on Ideal Living.

Years after the start of the lead water contamination crisis in Flint, Michigan, the community still struggles to access clean, safe water. 

At the height of the crisis, studies showed that more than 40 percent of Flint’s water measured above 5 ppb of lead, considered an indication of a very serious problem. More alarmingly, findings reported by area pediatricians showed that the incidence of elevated blood-lead level in children citywide had doubled and nearly tripled in some neighborhoods. Nearly 9,000 children were ingesting lead-contaminated water for 18 months, which can result in lead poisoning as well as high blood pressure, kidney damage, slowed growth and lower IQ, hyperactivity and other developmental issues. 

Our employees saw a way to help: AquaTru’s reverse osmosis countertop water purifier is certified to NSF standards to remove 83 contaminants, including more than 99% of lead. We could be part of the solution.  

Through a partnership with Pastor Derrick Aldridge of Second Chance Church, we donated $25,000 worth of AquaTru water purifiers to the families most in need.

We recently took time to follow up and speak with Pastor Aldridge about the Flint community and the critical importance of clean and safe water for all. 

How long have you been in the Flint community?

Derrick Aldridge: I was born and raised in Flint, and I have lived here for 67 years. My father was a pastor at a church, which he founded in 1956. He was a community innovator – the church grew to more than 1,500 members. He then started one of the first credit unions here. My mother was the principal of a school here until she retired. After college, I wasn’t going to stay in Flint, but my mother convinced me to be a substitute teacher, and I have been active in the community ever since, succeeding my father in the ministry. I started Second Chance Church in 2006. It’s open to everyone and anyone. 

How was the community impacted by poor water quality? 

DA: We are one of the poorest communities in Michigan. Forty-five percent of our residents live below the poverty line. Simply put, our people are without hope. Poor water quality is but one of many aspects of our community’s health crisis – and it affects everything, from finances to family health. For us, it’s an everyday issue. Imagine turning your water on and not being able to drink it? I have 21 grandchildren and it breaks my heart to see them suffer. 

What impact have the AquaTru products had on overall health?

DA: They have given people hope. AquaTru is a gift to our community right now. AquaTru cares about human life and quality of life. Nobody else came to us like they did and said, “We want to work with you; we want to help.”

What was the community’s reaction to the products?

Everyone who has received them has really appreciated them and seems to be doing much better. They were excited that they could enjoy clean water again. It’s so simple, but it’s such a profound need that is being met. 

Why is clean water so important for you and the community?

DA: When you don’t have access to clean water, it becomes an economic issue. If you don’t have safe water at home, you have to decide whether you are going to buy bottled water, then heat it up to bathe. You have to make economic choices. When you are already living in an economically-depressed area that takes a real toll. 

As a company, we remain committed to the Flint community, especially to those who are the most vulnerable to the damaging effects of lead. 

Expanding access to pure water is at the heart of why we do what we do. By providing AquaTru water purifiers to individuals and community centers, our impact is compounded. Through our partnership with Pastor Aldridge, hundreds of people now have access to pure water and can begin to build healthier lives. 

We extend our gratitude to our employees who brought this ethos to life through this effort in Flint and to Pastor Derrick Aldridge for his partnership.

The post Flint Water Crisis: Addressing a Community’s Need for Safe Water first appeared on Ideal Living.

The post Flint Water Crisis: Addressing a Community’s Need for Safe Water appeared first on Ideal Living.