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For those who don’t know, I’m a huge supporter of various local, national, and international charities. I firmly believe that we’re here to help out as much as we can.  A world without people willing to help and show support for one another is a world I don’t want to be in.  And as my mother always says, “If you’re not part of the solution, then you’re part of the problem.”  Hard to argue with that, eh?

And so, from time to time, I”ll donate money to charities I believe in.  Back in the summer, during the whole Chic-fil-A snafu, I wondered how far the cost for the average family of four to eat out at a fast food restaurant would go if put to a different use.  So I began searching for different charities and I remembered The Water Project from long ago.  It’s a wonderful organization! They raise money and then drill wells in places that don’t have access to clean drinking water.  They’re currently focusing their efforts in Africa.

Having clean water to drink at your disposal can make all the difference in the world.  It means children can finish their education because they aren’t having to walk 20 miles to the nearest water source. It means mothers are able to raise healthy families. It means a more stable food source. It means having a hope for the future.

The Water Project lists lots of facts and statistical data, but here are some of the ones I find most striking:

• A child dies every 15 seconds from lack of clean water
• 1 in 5 children who die before age 5 die because of a water-related disease
• Water-related diseases kills more people each year than wars or conflict

The Water Project estimates that donating $20 — or, the average cost of a fast food meal for a family of four — can provide one person clean drinking water for life.  That’s HUGE!  And the really cool part is, they update you every step of the way.  When you donate, they give you an opportunity to choose which project you want to give to, or you can choose the whichever project option.

When we donated, we just chose the whichever project option and got an instant email saying our donation was being put towards a project in Rwanda, and included a link we could use to access the latest developments on the project.  A few weeks after we donated, we got another email saying the project had officially started with a groundbreaking service and on Dec. 19, we received another email saying the project was complete!  It gave us a link to pictures and specific information about the community in Rwanda. We learned that more than 700 people in this community now have access to clean drinking water!  They had a ceremony as a thanks to the team who completed the project where one community leader said, “We had no reliable water source in this village. Our children travel long distance to fetch unclean water from swamp. Many times in the year, our kids get sickness due poor water. [We] appreciate the water well and [give] thanks God for giving us water.”

Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t ever take your family out to eat, ever.  But what I am saying is that maybe once in a while instead of eating fast food, consider donating to The Water Project.

I hope to once a month highlight a local, national or international organization which strives to improve the quality of life to others and each time, I’ll try to estimate how giving $20 will help the efforts.  Join me in these exciting opportunities to give back!

Here’s a photo of the groundbreaking ceremony:

And the project begins!

The end result: Clean drinking water.