Manifest Foundation

Hug it forward

Hug It Forward is a non-profit organization based in San Diego, California that empowers individuals, communities, and people globally to create sustainable solutions for community needs.

One way Hug It Forward empowers communities is in Guatemala and recently El Salvador, where communities build Bottle Schools from discarded plastic bottles and non-biodegradable trash.  This method of construction is eco-friendly, economical and involves everyone in the community taking ownership in the building the school.


Bottle School projects have many benefits, including:

• Providing much-needed educational infrastructure for poorer communities
• Cleaning the streets of non-biodegradable trash
• Teaching environmental awareness, recycling and proper trash management
• Fostering community leadership
• Teaching new skills to gain employment or which can be used on other community projects
• Spending capital within the local community where the school is being built
• Giving kids ownership of the school, because they build it with their own hands
• Uniting communities, which come together during the project

Insulating walls with plastic bottles stuffed with inorganic trash was pioneered in Guatemala by the organization Pura Vida.  Instead of the common cinder-block walls used in Central America, “eco-bricks” are stacked in between chicken wire and covered in cement.  The bottles are used solely as insulation; the buildings are supported by professionally built, structurally sound frames.

Hug It Forward, whose name is a contraction of “Humanity Unconditionally Giving,” champions the idea of giving out of pure love, without expecting anything in return.  They make every dollar count, believe in total accountability and transparency, think long-term and focus on sustainable win-win solutions that empower the communities in which they work.  Hug It Forward’s goal is to co-create a world where humankind recognizes our oneness and the importance of sharing our planet’s resources for everyone’s benefit.  Hug It Forward is also the curator of “The Bottle School Manual,” an online step-by-step guide to building bottle schools, and is their gift to others in hopes of spreading this technology and its benefits more rapidly to communities in need around the world.

The Manifest Foundation first learned about Hug It Forward through a rather unusual circumstance.  WorldVentures CEO Mike Azcue was working on a project and, while looking up ownership of a domain name he was interested in, he phoned Zach Balle of Hug It Forward.  After a short conversation they quickly realized how much they had in common and a few months later Hug It Forward became an impact partner of the Manifest Foundation with a goal to develop numerous and ongoing Voluntour trips, where donors could experience the “hands-on” building of Bottle Schools and the incredible impact they have on communities where they are built.

For more information about Hug It Forward, including videos showing the construction of bottle schools, visit www.hugitforward.org.