Conti assists group's bus to help homeless

SAN FRANCISO (March 4, 2014) — Continental Tire the Americas L.L.C. is helping support the nonprofit Lava Mae public-private initiative, which is outfitting a city-donated MUNI bus with showers and toilets to provide hygiene for the city's homeless.

The agency began retrofitting the bus in January and expects to debut the vehicle this spring.

Conti is providing four sets of commercial tires—for the first bus and three more to be retrofitted in 2015.

“Continental is proud to have the opportunity to step in and provide the bus tires that will be needed to bring the Lava Mae buses directly to the areas where people need this important service,” said Tom Fanning, Conti's director of replacement truck tire sales for North and Central America. “It is our hope that this donation of tires will help jumpstart this unique mobile initiative and get it ready to serve the homeless community.”

“Lavame” means “wash me” in Spanish.

“To this end, we have also chosen to supply them with bus tires that are specifically designed for the urban environment so that the Lava Mae initiative can keep rolling safely and helping people for a long time,” Mr. Fanning continued.

Other sponsors include Airco Mechanical Inc., which helped with retrofitting the bus, and Kohler Co., which provided bathroom fixtures.

Lava Mae is a collaboration between local government, local nonprofits and the private sector.

“By working together, we strengthen our community and, in this case specifically, make it possible for people to recover their humanity by delivering dignity one shower at a time,” said a statement from Lava Mae, which is targeting a $375,000 fundraising goal for the project.