A woman in a YouTube video described a choice she faced every week: spend her limited money on food, or on feminine hygiene products. Adrienne Threatt was moved. She and her husband, Emmanuel, started passing out hygiene products to women experiencing homelessness in Charlotte.
That was the start of Hope Vibes, the nonprofit the Threatts founded to bring awareness, hope, and real solutions to homelessness in Charlotte-Mecklenburg. In November 2020 the hygiene kits grew into the Hope Tank, a mobile shower and laundry center built into a box truck, with two bathrooms and laundry on board. Instead of asking people to travel to a shower, it goes where they already are.
The Threatts designed it to feel like a mix of home bathroom and RV, with local art inside. A line on the Hope Vibes homepage says what that's worth: "For a moment I felt like I was home."
The Hope Tank now serves the Charlotte area about six times a month, with 50 to 75 people at each stop, and a second truck is in the works. Hope Vibes also builds portable solar sinks and runs a monthly giving program called Join the 600. The city of Charlotte has asked the team to help design mobile restroom solutions.
Give hope daily.
