Been thinking about doing something for the first time, or even a second or third time, to help bring clean water to those in need?  Boy, do we have a great date for you!  Grab a pen, your iPhone, your family calendar, or your church bulletin; and mark down Thursday, March 22nd.  This day is set aside each year as World Water Day (WWD), where people all over the world talk about water, and its vital importance.

WWD is no small thing!  The international observance of World Water Day is an initiative that grew out of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro.  Each year since 1993 people have been getting out there and making a splash in their world for clean water.

This year’s focus is Water and Food Security.  Did you know that 70% of the water used in the world is used for agriculture?  Growing food takes tons of water, literally!  In fact, it takes about 3963 gallons of water to produce just 2 pounds of beef!  So without adequate water, people can’t grow adequate food.  Having access to clean, reliable water sources is important not just for drinking, bathing, and other hygiene practices, but for growing food.

Join us this year, and do something to commemorate WWD this March 22nd.  Host a fundraising event like a walk for water, take the Water Challenge, run in a road-race and get sponsors, and give the gift of clean water to those who do not have it.  Follow us on Facebook and Twitter and re-post the news and project updates we post.  Check out our Get Involved page for more ideas about how you can make this year’s World Water day a wave of success!

And invite a friend!  May as well ‘make it a date’!

Tess with children in Rwanda; see the woman carrying water in the background?

In the late autumn of 2011 we started meeting via Webex each month with students from colleges and universities all over the country.  Our goal?  To connect them to other like-minded peers and leaders who are interested in being a part of the solution to the economic water crisis that keeps millions without access to clean, reliable water sources.

In December we began recording the calls; I tell you, this is so fun!   So why bother doing the recording?  So we can share news from the field, and begin to catalog conversations that others (like you) can listen to and learn from, at your leisure!

Jack, the voice from the field

For our December call we had an interview with Jack Owen, our Program Manager, where we heard about a pilot project we are beginning in Kenya with a Field Partner, Pamoja Trust.   Working in informal urban settlements around Mombasa, the pilot project will establish two water kiosks, provide hygiene and sanitation training, and is expected to serve between 2500-3000 people.  Listen to our chat with Jack by clicking this link, and hear more details about this project, and stories of changed lives.

What’s next in our line up of recorded topics?  Keep your eyes open for topics such as ‘Time is Money Water!’ (to be recorded during our Jan. 25th call),  ’Technology Spotlight’, and others.  Have ideas for discussion topics?  Write to us!  We’d like to hear from you.

“Catch you on the radio”, as they say!

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!

We’ve posted a few shots from the event…more to come.

See who dropped by…

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

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.

The Lowe family returned to the hospital for more treatment and by July 29th, Liam had been back in the hospital for a few days with plenty of his own concerns.  But, apparently, worrying about himself isn’t what helps Liam through the day.

Dad and Liam were sitting together that day talking instead about how some children don’t have the food and water they need.  They wondered why some of those children have to work instead of going to school.  As they talked about how they could love others,  Liam decided to give some of his own money to help people in need get food and water.  He gave part of his money to buy chickens; and the other part he wanted to donate to bring clean water to children who are in need.  But that still wasn’t enough.

Liam’s a big thinker. His big goal was to fund two entire wells in Africa!  So the Lowe family set the goal of raising $13,500, the average cost of two wells in many of the countries where The Water Project works.  Amy was sure they could meet this goal.  They are surrounded by loving family and friends…who all lent a hand.

Remarkably, only two weeks later,  Liam had reached his goal!  Within days, the local paper heard of Liam and his acts of love and published a great story about this young hero.  The day the article ran, Liam’s original page received even more donations, this time from new friends the Lowe’s have never met. Taking a cue from Liam’s younger friends, who donated amounts like $4.25, $6.68 and $5.17,  many folks seemingly emptied their piggy banks to help Liam raise more than he dreamed.

Everyone seems eager to follow the example of this courageous boy.  Liam inspires.   In the midst of fighting his own battle with cancer, he is strong enough to create hope in the lives of others – half a world away.  All by simply living each day to create, to learn and to love.

We have all learned a lot from Liam.  So, that leaves the rest of today to create and to love…

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.

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

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

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.

Makenzie got involved with The Water Project after selecting clean water as her topic for a speech class. Through her Internet research she found The Water Project web site.  “I didn’t really plan on fundraising, but then afterwards I got started and now I’ve raised almost $1300.”, says Makenzie.  In all 90 classrooms at Rockford High, Makenzie placed donation bags and information about the need for clean water.  Weekly, Makenzie would go around to each classroom and pick up the donations, all the while wearing a cast on her knee.  Friends really mattered as they pitched in and helped with making the rounds to each classroom to collect the donations.

The donations made a big jump the day that Makenzie attended her parish’s youth organization, WHAM, and heard from a team that had just come back from Africa.  The team shared their first hand story of what they experienced during their trip, including seeing the need for clean water.  When they heard Makenzie was raising funds for a well project, the donations that were collected that night were passed to Makenzie for her fund raising efforts.

Cool enough already, right?

Enter Sam, a 4^th grader at Parkside Elementary School.  Sam’s teacher gave each student $2 and challenged them to change the world with it.  Sam’s Dad was reading a news article about a girl in his town that was raising funds for a well in Africa (yup, this was Makenzie), and Sam really liked the idea.  Sam wrote to Makenzie and told her he wanted to help. Sam and his family made up donation cans each with a message about clean water (like, “$1 will give 1 person water for 1 year!”) and placed them around Sam’s school.  Sam’s set a goal of $100 and he raised $104, exceeding his goal!

Globally, Makenzie and Sam are making a difference.

Locally, they were connecting with each other, sharing the goal, and encouraging each other.  In fact, Makenzie demonstrated that encouragement when she had a special Excellence award made up for Sam, and then surprised him at Parkside with the award, a certificate for a dozen cupcakes from her renowned cupcake side-business, and an I’M GIVING WATER wrist band from The Water Project.    Way to keep the spring encouragement going Makenzie!

When we asked Sam what he would want to say to a student his age in Africa who will drink from the well his fundraising helped build, Sam said, simply, “I would say that I was glad I could help you.”  You did Sam …

Check out Makenzie’s fundraising page at: http://thewaterproject.org/community/profile/kenzie-conner .   She is just short of her goal of $1500.  If you would like to help, we’re sure she and Sam would appreciate it!

“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.

I had been considering ways to raise money for the Water Project before this time, but this goal of running 13.1 miles felt like the perfect opportunity to challenge those around me to donate.  I set a goal of $2,500 for myself and opened a donation page sending out a request to everyone I knew personally and at work that I thought would support my goal.  Within one week I was above $2,500 and raised my goal to $5,000.  Over a 12 week period from January through March I trained 5 days a week running over 200 miles during the process.  As the final weeks approached I topped $5,200 in donations.   The fact that so many had given so much kept me motivated; how could I not run one more mile for those in need.  On March 27, 2011 I completed the Oakland Half Marathon in 2:28 minutes without walking one single step and in the process changed the lives of many who will now have water to drink.”

Stephen, we applaud you and thank all the folks who supported you, both physically through training, emotionally through encouragement, and financially through donations.  Our thanks to Sephora for their matching gifts program that also made this well project at a Uganda school possible.  You all are an inspiration!