In spite of its good intentions, charity can sometimes feel like it’s being put on top of people, forcing them to provide the help that an organization thinks its recipients need.
 
Lava Mae gets to the heart of important issues, though, providing showers and personal hygiene products to people living on the streets around the world. Dignity and self-worth are the core messages Lava Mae shares as it helps people access these most basic of human needs and comforts.

“Lava Mae brings critical services to the streets, delivered with Radical Hospitality, to restore dignity, rekindle optimism, and fuel a sense of opportunity,” the nonprofit explains on its website. “Our audacious goal is to unleash a Radical Hospitality Revolution around the world.” CNN Hero Doniece Sandoval started Lava Mae in San Francisco back in 2013. She noticed more and more people sleeping on the streets of San Francisco as the city became an increasingly expensive place to live due to the tech industry boom, which skyrocketed real estate prices and sped up the gentrification process. CNN reported that Sandoval was shocked when she found that there were less than 20 shower stalls and toilets for the thousands of homeless people in the city. “For the homeless community, it was the equivalent of being in a third-world country,” she told CNN.

The organization converted retired city buses into mobile shower units that could give people easy access to their serv...