International Women's Day is powered by the collective efforts of all. This year, the official theme of the day is #ChoosetoChallenge:
A challenged world is an alert world. Individually, we're all responsible for our own thoughts and actions - all day, every day.
We can all choose to challenge and call out gender bias and inequality. We can all choose to seek out and celebrate women's achievements. Collectively, we can all help create an inclusive world.
From challenge comes change, so let's all choose to challenge.
On International Women's Day, we are honoring our company history and celebrating Lenore Propper Schwartz. Dropps would not exist without Lenore!
Lenore Propper was an entrepreneur, actress, and community volunteer. After attending Carnegie Mellon and the New School, Lenore directed radio shows for the U.S Army overseas and served as a Lieutenant for the U.S. Army Special Services in Germany. She was an actress and board member of the Philadelphia Drama Guild of Philadelphia. She was the founder of the Stage Door Canteen in Philadelphia, the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia "Daisy Day" program in 1953, and co-founder and co-chairman of Philadelphia Chapter of the Plays for Living Organization where she served for over 20 years. She also served on the National Board of Plays for Living from 1978 to 1983.
After serving as publisher of the Knitting Mill News in Philadelphia, Mrs. Schwartz went on to start three companies in which she served as president. In 1965 she founded Lenore Propper Imports, an importer of evening wear from the South Pacific and in 1979 she founded Conshohocken Cotton Company, a manufacturer of the patented Softball Yarns and Cot’nwash, Inc.
When Lenore started the Conshohocken Cotton Co., she made apparel using a patented cotton yarn. But there weren’t any commercial detergents gentle enough for the fabrics. Who better to come up with a laundry detergent that’s gentle on fabrics than the people who make the fabric?
Lenore and her son Jonathan (you might know him as the Founder & CEO of Dropps!) took matters into their own hands and created a low-sudsing, detergent that would treat their natural fibers right, and keep fabrics looking better, longer. So they removed enzymes to keep the natural fabrics vibrant and soft. The result? An innovative formula with a split personality: tough on dirt, but gentle on your favorite clothing. They named it Cot’n Wash, and Consumer Reports named it #1 in overall cleaning quality among hand-laundry detergents.
Her laundry detergent legacy continues as the Cot'n Wash formula served as the original base for Dropps laundry detergent pods!
About International Women's Day:
"International Women's Day (March 8) is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity.
International Women's Day (IWD) has been observed since in the early 1900's - a time of great expansion and turbulence in the industrialized world that saw booming population growth and the rise of radical ideologies. International Women's Day is a collective day of global celebration and a call for gender parity. No one government, NGO, charity, corporation, academic institution, women's network or media hub is solely responsible for International Women's Day. Many organizations declare an annual IWD theme that supports their specific agenda or cause, and some of these are adopted more widely with relevance than others.
"The story of women's struggle for equality belongs to no single feminist nor to any one organization but to the collective efforts of all who care about human rights," says world-renowned feminist, journalist and social and political activist Gloria Steinem. Thus International Women's Day is all about unity, celebration, reflection, advocacy and action - whatever that looks like globally at a local level. But one thing is for sure, International Women's Day has been occurring for well over a century - and continues to grow from strength to strength." - International Women's Day