{"id":4295,"date":"2011-05-06T09:26:09","date_gmt":"2011-05-06T14:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/?p=4295"},"modified":"2017-11-28T10:54:55","modified_gmt":"2017-11-28T15:54:55","slug":"helping-others-locally-and-globally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/2011\/05\/06\/helping-others-locally-and-globally\/","title":{"rendered":"Helping Others Locally and Globally"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>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.\u00a0 With it, spring brings encouragement and hope of things new.\u00a0 In the last week we\u2019ve heard about two families that are bringing hope and encouragement, like spring, to more than a village in Africa.\u00a0 They are bringing it to one another as well.<\/p>\n

At Rockford High School, Junior Makenzie Connor (\u2018Kenzie\u2019 to friends and family) doesn\u2019t just do good for others 7000 miles away from Rockford\u2026 she does good for people in her own backyard.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>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.\u00a0 \u201cI didn\u2019t really plan on fundraising, but then afterwards I got started and now I\u2019ve raised almost $1300.\u201d, says Makenzie.\u00a0 In all 90 classrooms at Rockford High, Makenzie placed donation bags and information about the need for clean water.\u00a0 Weekly, Makenzie would go around to each classroom and pick up the donations, all the while wearing a cast on her knee.\u00a0 Friends really mattered as they pitched in and helped with making the rounds to each classroom to collect the donations.<\/p>\n

The donations made a big jump the day that Makenzie attended her parish\u2019s youth organization, WHAM, and heard from a team that had just come back from Africa.\u00a0 The team shared their first hand story of what they experienced during their trip, including seeing the need for clean water.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Cool enough already, right?<\/p>\n

Enter Sam, a 4th<\/sup> grader at Parkside Elementary School.\u00a0 Sam\u2019s teacher gave each student $2 and challenged them to change the world with it.\u00a0 Sam\u2019s 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.\u00a0 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, \u201c$1 will give 1 person water for 1 year!\u201d) and placed them around Sam\u2019s school.\u00a0 Sam\u2019s set a goal of $100 and he raised $104, exceeding his goal!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Globally, Makenzie and Sam are making a difference.<\/p>\n

Locally, they were connecting with each other, sharing the goal, and encouraging each other.\u00a0 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\u2019M GIVING WATER wrist band from The Water Project.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Way to keep the spring encouragement going Makenzie!<\/p>\n

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, \u201cI would say that I was glad I could help you.\u201d\u00a0 You did Sam \u2026<\/p>\n

Check out Makenzie\u2019s fundraising page at: http:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/profile\/kenzie-conner<\/a> .\u00a0 \u00a0She is just short of her goal of $1500.\u00a0 If you would like to help, we’re sure she and Sam would appreciate it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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.\u00a0 With it, spring brings encouragement and hope of things new.\u00a0 In the last week we\u2019ve heard about two families that are bringing hope and encouragement, like spring, to more than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured-groups"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4295"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4301,"href":"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4295\/revisions\/4301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}