How A 10 Year Old Convinced MEO To Create New Masks For Charity.

HOW A 10 YEAR OLD CONVINCED MEO TO CREATE NEW MASKS FOR CHARITY

Lilah McDonald is unlike any 10 year old you have ever met. This pre-teen dreams of looking after the health of New Zealanders by reducing the use of plastic bottles and decreasing the consumption of sugary drinks. To achieve these dreams, Lilah is raising funds for her very first project under her social enterprise, Water Us Limited – building drinking fountains in Auckland’s parks and playgrounds.

Born out of her own experience of seeing water fountains spread all across different European cities, Lilah came back home and questioned the lack of such fountains in Auckland and New Zealand. Upon research, she found out that only 5% of parks and 16% of playgrounds in Auckland have water fountains. This prevents children and adults from re-filling their water bottles and encourages people to consume sugary drinks instead, which are available at a cheaper price than bottled water. This led to the birth of her charitable foundation, the Public Water Project.

WHERE DID IT START?

Last year, MEO Air Director, Kenneth Leong was approached in a very persuasive email to collaborate with The Public Water Project. Keeping in mind the unprecedented circumstances faced by many business owners due to COVID-19, Lilah who initially approached businesses to sponsor a water fountain, pivoted her fundraising model to partner with companies to create and sell products, with at least 50 % of the proceeds donated to her project.

In the email, Lilah outlined her idea for the collaboration with MEO Air – to create a special line of face masks for charity. MEO Air has a long history of supporting charities, social enterprises and community organisations in New Zealand. Since our launch in 2018, we have received hundreds of ideas for collaboration, but Lilah’s idea stuck with our director and the team!

LILAH’S DREAM

Within six months of the first conversation, MEO Air team and Lilah collaborated to choose a  new fabric design for MEO Air kids mask range. 

This was the birth of ‘Lilah’s Dream’, our adorable new kids face masks designed in collaboration with Maggie Lam Surface Design with fabric chosen by this innovative young Kiwi. 100% of the profits from the sale of these limited-edition, reusable children’s face mask, will be with donated to the Public Water Project. MEO Air is keen to help Lilah achieve her goal of building 100 new water fountains by the end of 2021.

Since the launch of the masks in March 2021, MEO Air has sold over 1000 masks. MEO Air will continue to support Lilah in her goals of increasing the number of water stations to a minimum ratio of 1:2000 people by 2024. 

WHERE TO BUY LILAH’S DREAM

This limited edition of “Lilah’s Dream” face masks are available for sale on our website. If you want to find out more about The Public Water project, visit www.publicwater project.org and show Lilah your support.