Membership in a group is a meaningful behavioral driver, particularly for school children. The Pledge of Caring harnesses this motivational power by the individual student participating in a group pledge, read aloud, signed together and posted in a highly visible location.

This priority and personal accountability can be achieved quickly by:

1. Showing one of the HandwashingforLife videos, The Trail of the Invisible Yuck or Milo & The Invisible World of Germs followed by
2. Executing the ProGrade training instrument and
3. Closing with adding their name(s) to the Pledge. This becomes a living poster, to be updated regularly.

With over 144 million lost school days per year due to illness, it is easy to see how critical it is to control absenteeism from both work and school.

A 51% reduction in absenteeism was achieved in this peer reviewed study:

Guinan, M., M. McGuckin, and Y. Ali. 2002.

The effect of a comprehensive handwashing program on absenteeism in elementary schools. American Journal of Infection Control 31:1-8.