Kat Graham and Peter Chasse at
"The Ripple Effect" in Los Angeles.

This past Saturday, December 10th, Kat Graham and Ian Somerhalder hosted “The Ripple Effect” in Los Angeles to benefit The Water Project. It was a beautiful evening, complete with a red carpet welcome, live and silent auctions, and presentations by the hosts and our founder, Peter Chasse.

Over 200 people turned out to show their support, including a number of Kat and Ian’s friends from the CW Network. Ms. Graham, who previously sponsored a water well through donations to her fundraising page on myWaterProject, worked with Jane Owen PR to organize every detail of the evening. She arranged sponsors, solicited gifts for the auction, and made sure everyone had an amazing time.

According to GiveBackHollywood.com, “Celebrities that attended to support the cause include Emmy Rossum, Nina Dobrev, Michael Trevino, Jenna Ushkowitz, Arielle Kebbel, Krysten Ritter, Camille Winbush, Christa B. Allen, Deborah S. Craig, Matt Lanter, Tiffany Hines, Judi Shekoni, Perez Hilton, Tamra Barney, Eddie Judge, Bianca Lawson, James Kyson Lee, and Marisa Quinn. Matthew Koma, best known for his hit “Novocaine Lips” on the Abduction soundtrack, entertained the celebrity audience.”

Throughout the evening, guests tweeted support of The Water Project and helped introduce our work to thousands of new people. We’re still tallying all the donations that have been made as a result, but we can say that many new wells and water projects will be built in 2012 thanks to Kat Graham’s Ripple Effect event. We couldn’t be more thankful!

See Photos and Video Inside

Libby and her Mom Meg have something in common.  They love to bake.  In fact, they even have their own web site where folks in the Hamilton, Ohio area can order freshly baked muffins and cupcakes to be delivered to your door. Check them out here:http://flourpowertreats.weebly.com/index.html

But what makes Libby so cool is that she has used her love for baking as a way to raise money to bring clean water to a community in Africa.  Muffin Mondays she calls them.

Every Monday since early October Libby has delivered freshly baked muffins to the Teacher’s Room at her school in Harrison.  Flavors vary each week and have included Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip, Granola, Blueberry, and Cinnamon Apple Crumble.  Wrapped in clear plastic wrap so the tantalizing goodness can be seen, each muffin is labeled with this equally clear message … these muffins don’t only taste good, they DO good.

They taste good, and do good!

Each muffin is only $1, but that $1 is a gateway to clean water.  Libby’s loyal teachers and fans have been doing their part by ordering their muffins each week, and Libby and her family are gaining momentum toward their goal to fund a well.

What about the rest of Libby’s family?  Well, Dad holds the invaluable (and lucky) role of being an official taste tester; and sister Maggie is helping out in the kitchen measuring out yummy ingredients.  The inspiration of all this family fun?  Libby’s Grandmother, who has seen first-hand the need for clean water during mission trips to Africa.  Her stories shared with Mother Meg and Granddaughter Libby stirred up the passion for clean water that led the Graham family to bake treats that will turn into taps (or more likely pumps) of clean water.

So my only question?  If Monday’s are for muffins, what about Tuesday and the rest of the week?!

To track Libby’s progress, see the family fundraising page here: http://thewaterproject.org/community/profile/meg-graham

“Every day we make something, we learn something, and we try to love people.”

That’s the goal, every day, for the Lowe family from Abilene, Texas.

We met Matt, Amy and their two children, Liam and Mary when they called recently about starting a fundraising page so that Liam, pictured here with Dad, could love people by helping build wells in Africa.

As we read through Liam’s page, we met a remarkable young man who has spent many months over the last year battling leukemia in a Texas hospital.  Things had been going well.  Liam had even recently been home for a month in Abilene, in remission.

But Liam soon spiked a fever that just wouldn’t go away.  While checking up on the fever and a few other symptoms in the emergency room, they discovered his cancer was back.

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Faith in Action Overflows to Four Communities

Students at Southwest Chicago Christian School in Tinley Park, Illinois have been learning about the lack of clean water available to people throughout the world.   As Principal Terry Huizenga wrote, “After hearing that one out of every six people in the world do not have access to clean water and that often women and young children walk more than five miles a day in order to obtain water, students decided to take action.”

In the spirit of the school’s vision statement, “A Christ-Centered Learning Community Intent on Restoring God’s World,” the students raised $26,000.   Students ranging from kindergarten to eighth grade participated in a walkathon in the fall of the 2010-2011 school year, with the purpose of raising awareness and funds for people in developing nations who lack safe drinking water.  The result?  Four communities will have clean water … three in Kenya, and one in Rwanda.  Now that’s faith in action.

But the students didn’t stop at fundraising; they also took time to care about the communities on a greater level.  “As Southwest Christian partnered with the Water Project for this important work, they have also been praying that the communities who receive the wells will come to know the love of Christ through their gift of clean water. “, says Principal Huizenga.

Check out the well projects in Kenya and Rwanda that are possible because of students taking action and making a difference:

See their Projects Here

You can host a walkathon in your community too.  Contact us for a guide of helpful tips to planning this type of event.

Strangest fundraiser ever?

We may never know… but Kevin Cline and friends sure got our attention with this one.  You simply have to watch!

You may be wondering…

Was this a waste of water? Maybe.   But, here’s a stunner.  A 10 hour shower only uses about 1,500 gallons of water.  That’s less than is needed to produce one hamburger!*

So, we think it was worth it.  Kevin raised over $1,000 in just 10 hours.  You can see how the 1,500 gallons was put to good use here >>

*Source: http://ga2.er.usgs.gov/edu/edu-activity-watercontent.cfm

What do you think … is four-years-old too young to make a difference for someone living without reliable access to clean water?  If you think so, then we’d have to say … think again!

Silver, who lives in Utah, is making a difference – one ‘facebadge’ at a time.  His Dad, Justin, tells us that Silver “…saw a PSA about kids drinking water from mud puddles. He got really mad …”

When something makes you mad, it’s often a sign that there is something wrong, something that needs to change.  Silver sure understands that principle, because he took his ‘mad’ and turned it into action.  Now, Silver and Justin (also known as Papa Silver) have a Facebook page where they sell Silver’s mini works of art to help others.

What is a ‘face badge’?  We didn’t know either…  So we checked it out (and you should too).  Silver draws happy faces, sad faces, scary faces, angry faces; and with the help of his Dad makes them into laminated pins that you can wear as a badge with the emotion of your choice.  You can order one yourself!  We sure did…

And the next time you feel discouraged that you can’t do anything about the problems we face as a global community, look over at that facebadge you got from Silver and be reminded,  no one is too young (or too old) to make a difference.  And no effort is too small to count.

Here is Silver and Papa Silver’s Facebook page… check it out!

http://www.facebook.com/facebadge

Spring 2011 is just beginning to take hold in many parts of the US, pushing cold and wet away, and bringing flowers and green grass.  With it, spring brings encouragement and hope of things new.  In the last week we’ve heard about two families that are bringing hope and encouragement, like spring, to more than a village in Africa.  They are bringing it to one another as well.

At Rockford High School, Junior Makenzie Connor (‘Kenzie’ to friends and family) doesn’t just do good for others 7000 miles away from Rockford… she does good for people in her own backyard.

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We got a great email a few weeks ago from Stephen Lasky, Vice President of Business Planning and Analysis at Sephora.  Stephen had undertaken a huge goal that would result in better health for himself and provide an inspiration to Sephora employees.  Being the ‘others’ minded person that Stephen is, he wanted to tie that accomplishment to a cause … the cause of bringing clean, safe water to those without.  We could try to tell Stephen’s story, but why not read it directly from Stephen himself …

“In August of 2009 after a lifetime of battling obesity, I had a moment of clarity that the time had come.  At 5’5” and 251 pounds I started a journey to change my life. At that time I was taking medications for high blood pressure, cholesterol, and gout.  In September of 2010, 13 months after I began my journey I had dropped 100 pounds and was free from all medications.  It was in September 2010 that I tried for the first time in my life to run a mile without stopping.  After running for 5 minutes on the treadmill I felt pretty good and was encouraged to keep going…15 minutes later I had run my first mile.  One month later I decided I needed closure to the process I started a year earlier; that closure would be signing up for a ½ marathon.

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For 38 years, the Northwest Girlchoir (http://www.northwestgirlchoir.org/) has championed extraordinary music education and performance opportunities for girls and young women.  This month, in honor of World Water Day 2011, the choral organization championed something else … clean water.  From concerts performed in two locations in the Seattle, Washington area, the choir’s Artistic Director, Sara Boos, decided that the groups would put their artistic talents to work to fund clean water projects, one internationally (in Africa), and one locally (toward Puget Sound’s clean-up).

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