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Saving
Lives Through the Provision of Hope |
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Spero
Group in the News |
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Please visit our pages on the water crisis and AIDS crisis. Fighting these global crises are the initial reasons Spero Group was formed; one household, one community at a time. |
Download out media Page Highlights |
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________ Spero Group is dedicated to selling products that allow us to fulfill our mission. Currently, Spero Group markets Natural Spring Water under the label: Tumai Means To Hope |
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Click to read the Full article Hope is the Message in Martinsburg Bottled Water Story by CHRISTINE MILLER FORD |
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Bob Downey, who heads Spero Group Inc., the Martinsburg
company marketing Tumai Water, says that yes, the world literally does.
Anti-poverty programs in South Africa and elsewhere get part of the proceeds from every bottle of Tumai purchased. The water, which can boast the title “Best Tasting Bottled Water in the World” after taking top honors at the Berkeley Springs’ annual water tasting competition earlier this year, is sold in stores in dozens of counties in West Virginia as well as in five other states in the Northeast. It also has distributors as far away as Texas, California and even Europe in negotiations to carry the brand. “Everyone drinks bottled water and our water costs the same as all the other products on the shelf,’’ Downey explains. “But because we use proceeds to bring safe drinking water, food, clothes, education and other help to some of the poorest parts of the world, this is a way for people to get the drink they need and do a good deed at the same time.” The name Tumai translates to “hope” in Swahili and the company employs the slogan, “Need a Drink, Drink for a Need.” Downey said he wanted to enter the Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting competition in February “hoping just to get our name out there.” Winning the big prize generated coverage in news outlets ranging from CNN and the BBC to USA Today, the Los Angeles Times and elsewhere. Distributors began flooding Downey with offers to carry the brand, which is bottled from a spring near Danville, Va. Prior to Berkeley Springs, Tumai had been selling in just three local retail outlets and to a handful of home delivery clients. While pleased to see the business growing so quickly, Downey says his goal has never been just to sell water. The 40-year-old Martinsburg native views his business as a way to boost awareness of global poverty and to provide direct, sustained help in easing the devastating cycle of poverty in South Africa and elsewhere. (Full article online at statejournal.com) |
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In search of the world's Top 5 glasses of water |
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| Best spring water on Earth
Though some die-hard environmentalists consider bottled water a big no-no, we're talking taste here - and I can tell you that U.S.-based Tumai bottled water is the best-tasting liquid I have ever guzzled from a 500 ml prison of polycarbonate. Gathered from a spring in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, this Martinsburg, West Virginia-based company has won several top prizes for taste in 2008. Its water is 100 per cent free of sodium and it shows in the taste. What's more, the company donates 15 per cent of its proceeds to
programs that better the quality of life for impoverished communities
in Sub-Saharan-Africa. |
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Local Company Sees Business Soar |
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BERKELEY COUNTY, WV - A local company continues to make
waves in the world of water.
Tumai water is winning awards around the world and it all started right here in the Four-State area. It's a tasting competition where being taste-less is what wins, and even with entries from all over the world, one local company took home gold at the Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting. But since they just started bottling six months ago, they never thought they'd actually win. “When they announced we were the winners we just looked at each other in disbelief,” recalls Bob Downey, the president of Tumai water. Jill Klein Rone, a producer for the water tasting competition, says, “I was backstage. When I found out who won tears came to my eyes.” Tumai is the Swahili word for "to hope" and
the water company says they're not focused on profits. They're
more focused
on helping change the world. |
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Spero Group pledges proceeds from sales for Africa relief efforts By QUINN DALY / Journal Staff Writer |
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| MARTINSBURG — One West Virginia
company has found a unique way to bring hope to the less fortunate:
It is bottling it.
The Spero Group, headquartered in Martinsburg, recently launched a brand of bottled water called “Tumai Means to Hope,” and the company, which is designed to run like a nonprofit organization, has pledged to donate money left over from production and operating costs directly to African relief efforts, according to Robert Downey, the company’s managing director. Downey said buying the water is a way that everyone can do a good deed. “Everyone drinks bottled water, and this brand is the same price as others, but you can point to this and say, ‘Hey, this helps kids in Africa,’” said Downey, who was born and raised in the region.
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West Virginia's
Tumai water
brings hope to Africa (Full
Article) Bob Downey is exporting hope from Martinsburg, West Virginia to South Africa and other areas of the African continent, one sip at a time. Downey created the Spero Group after working as an engineer on a project in Africa and seeing the kind of help that many in Africa need. In Latin, the word spero means hope. The Spero Group in turn formed the nonprofit bottled water company Tumai, which is Swahili for “to hope for.” At least 15% of the profits from sales of the bottled water are used “specifically to fund the projects we do in Africa,” said Downey, 40, who is married and the father of two children. Those projects include assistance for two orphanages in South Africa and work with groups like Engineers Without Borders in other parts of Africa. Among the projects the bottled water sales help underwrite are permanent drinking water well systems and improved sanitation, Downey said. The fight against HIV/AIDS is included within programs that are assisted by sales of Tumai water. As of 2005, South Africa alone had an estimated 1.2 million orphans under age 17 who lost one or both parents to AIDS, according to the United Nations and World Health Organization. Nationwide, 5.5 million people were believed to be infected with the HIV virus. Many of those in orphanages supported by Tumai water sales are there because one or both of their parents died of AIDS, said Downey. And many of the children themselves are HIV positive or have AIDS. Proceeds from bottled water sales also help pay for training so children in the orphanages can earn a living when they’re grown, Downey said, and some of the money goes simply for basics, like sandals. Mindful of the corruption that, in many parts of Africa, sucks money from government and charity programs, Downey emphasizes “we want people to know that their money is going to go where they want it to go.” To help ensure that Tumai can follow through on its promises, two of the Spero Group directors are based in South Africa. |
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| Coming soon - Full list of articles | |||||
Company sends hope in a bottle
