charity: water

campaign: Bread for Water
campaign goal:$1,700
has been fundraising since: February 9, 2012
mission statement: “The Maher Kids will be selling tasty homemade bread to benefit charity: water this Lent. Help us help others.”

What first caught your attention about the water crisis?
We have seen first-hand the devastation that unclean water can cause. Children in impoverished countries face more struggles than we can imagine. Isaac’s story in particular made that very real for us. For a parasite to rob his developing body of what few nutrients it was receiving was a travesty. The global water crisis has far-reaching effects in the areas of health, hygiene, education and economics. In that regard, it can seem daunting. On the other hand, like many problems in developing countries, we are aware of the solutions and are able to help.

How did the kids end up starting the campaign?
We raise our kids with strong Christian values. Of all the teachings they receive at home, church or school — the idea that they should serve others every chance they get is paramount. charity: water is a perfect way for our kids to get involved and serve others. They did a much smaller Christmas campaign a few years ago and it was very rewarding for them to receive an update last summer of the water project completed with their money.

The campaign raised more than the original goal — did that surprise you?
This campaign has been amazing! They originally set their goal at $300, which I thought was ambitious. We are now over $1,600. I seriously thought people would give us $3-5 for a loaf of bread the first few weeks, then things would die down. We have had people we barely know moved to tears, writing $100 checks. We have had a strong contingent of friends, also very generous with donations, placing regular orders multiple times each week. One week alone we filled 40 orders of bread and cinnamon rolls! The demand for bread has surprised me for sure. More than that, however, the supply of love and support for the cause has astonished me.

What do they do to help with the campaign?
The Maher Kids have surprised me too! I honestly thought their enthusiasm would decline early on. On the contrary, they are just as eager as they were on the first day. Grace asked if we could do this “all year-long!!” Their diligence has also surprised me. Sam, the oldest, has taken on the role of business manager. He takes all orders, responds to all e-mails, and developed the Powerpoint. Grace and Imani, our marketing department, designed our logos and are always thinking of ways to promote the campaign. Grace, Imani, and Isaac write individual thank you tags to accompany each order and all four children try to be present for all deliveries.

In the kids’ words:
I want to bring clean water to people so they can be happy and healthy. Maybe we can change the whole world and maybe everybody will be happy. – Imani

I want to bring clean water to people because water is one of the most important things in the world. A lot of people need clean water and don’t have it. We should help people because we are lucky and the people we are helping are not as lucky. – Sam

I want to help charity: water so people won’t get sick from tummy bugs from dirty water from rivers. – Isaac

I want to give people clean water so they can play and have fun and be healthy. – Grace

Sell homemade bread, run a 5K, give up soda — you can do anything to fundraise for clean water! Get started here >

campaign: Getting Engaged Changes Everything
raised so far: $2,650
campaign goal:$5,000
has been fundraising since: March 27, 2012
mission statement: “We’ve known for a while that we wanted to get married, but the big question remained: When? Our goal is to raise $5,000 — the average price it costs to dig, build & maintain a well that will impact hundreds of people! The day we meet that goal will be the day that I propose to Tori! So, will you help us get engaged?”

In William’s words:
For us, being able to help others has always been something we wanted to do! After we both graduated from college, we started working and earning money. We wondered if we could help people in need, so we always wanted to work for places like World Vision. For me, I even wanted to work for charity: water! But life gets in the way sometimes — though we’ve had this heart to help people, it didn’t come easily.

This time around, God worked in our hearts a little differently. It was slowly feeling like the time was coming when I had to pop the big question and we talked about it. We started with the typical wants and dreams of what our engagement and wedding should look like. I was challenged by those who gave up entire weddings for charity: water and imagined myself in their shoes… how awesome would that be? It was just a passing thought at the time, but I shared it with Tori. Months later, she came to me and told me how she didn’t like the idea of spending money on getting a ring when we could use that money to do something bigger.

Coincidently, while I was enjoying the clean water in our apartment during a shower, it struck me that it only takes charity: water $5000 to fund a water project. Half-jokingly and half-nervously, I proposed the idea to my girlfriend. I wanted to use this campaign as a way for us to pick the date we get engaged. She acknowledged my fears and we both thought it might be too ambitious for us because, well, who were we to want to do something like this? Within days I found myself putting together a little brochure to share our dream with our friends and family. By the time she saw that, she pretty much assumed we were going for it.

So we did! And here we are.

What’s surprised you about this whole process?
Everything. The way that God let me come across charity: water while watching TV on Hulu. How Scott’s story really hit home with my vision of cultural mission work. How the response from our friends has been so positive. How the response from complete strangers has been in some ways even more positive. How we’ve caught the eye of the organization itself! And especially just how fast the funds have been coming in… I guess God really wants us to hurry up with this whole marriage thing.

It’s been amazing and extremely humbling to see how God has been working to do such an amazing thing, despite how we are complete nobodies. How could we deny that His hand is with us?

campaign: Paddle for Wells
raising the money: Josh Tart
raised so far: $2,185
campaign goal:$5,000
mission statement: “I’m paddling 6,000 miles for clean water. Help me raise $5,000 in the next three months to give clean water access to 250 people!”

How did you first get started fighting the water crisis?
I’ve been to really remote places, Peru and Guatemala, and I’ve kinda seen some of the water that people drink firsthand. Somebody told me about charity: water a month before I started the trip. I followed Scott and charity: water on Twitter. I was really impressed with how y’all manage the money that you receive and just how you show people what you do. I was coming out of my junior year of college and was thinking of something adventuresome to do. I actually put paddling for a cause and the water crisis together last March, then I opened up my campaign officially at the beginning of January.

What did you do to prepare everything for
your adventure?
There was a lot of preparation to get the right camping gear, fishing gear and all that stuff. When I first started it was just, “what do I think I need and what I know I need?” That’s changed as the trip goes. This is a learning experience. I’ve been making changes to my system. I’ve narrowed it down to the things I really need and what’s important.

campaign: Bridge to Bridge
raising the money: Tim, Clay and Isaac
raised so far: $300
campaign goal:$5,000
mission statement: “We love film, athletics, and just about everything in between, but we know unless you’re doing something positive to improve or change the world for the better then what’s the point really. To that end, we want to utilize the notoriety, and a significant portion of the proceeds, from the film, to generate and promote an organization we love called charity: water.”

So, Tim, how did you hear about the water crisis?
I lived the water crisis. I spent the last two years living in Mozambique. For four of those months, the apartment building we were living in did not have running water. My wife and I carried water bottles every day to our apartment from a local water tank. It was very difficult. We filtered the water every day with ceramic water filters, but fell ill many times, even though the water we were consuming was filtered. Many of the local neighborhoods have hand-dug wells that are not very deep and therefore full of bacteria and viruses. After consuming this water accidentally, I fell ill for two weeks with dysentery. Due to the economic situation of Mozambique, many people live below the poverty line and don’t have money to buy ceramic water filters. We were shocked when we saw the Mozambicans using muddy rain run-off to drink and bathe in.

What inspired you to start a mycharity: water campaign?
We wanted to make a difference in the lives of others. We thought that by doing something radical, we could attract attention. And then we could redirect that attention to serve a bigger cause. We have a passion to dig one well that will provide clean water for over 100 people — their children too, and theirs, on down the generations. This is the reason we are going to get in the water in San Francisco and start paddling south. Our motto tells the story: “Crossing Water to Bring Water.”

Clay, can you give us a basic idea of what a day of paddling will look like?
We’re training for the endurance paddle from the Golden Gate to San Diego’s Bay Bridge — that will be 20 to 30 miles each day. We’ll start at dawn and weather, wind and ocean conditions permitting, we’ll be done each day by one. We’ll come ashore to camp, eat, nap, stretch, work on the film and be in bed by nine. Most of our training has been in the ocean, and we usually try and paddle a minimum of ten miles. When we paddle in flat water, we do sprints and work on our paddle technique. When the waves get good, we love to surf our YOLO paddle boards as part of training.

Is there anything that has been surprising about fundraising for your campaign?
I am very surprised at how difficult it is to motivate people to donate for clean water. We are surrounded by luxury, water included, so it’s very difficult to convince our culture of the basic needs of life elsewhere.

People are sick and dying every day and one of the simplest ways to help prevent sickness and death is to provide clean water. With that said, I am excited to say we have raised over $300 for the campaign and we haven’t even started paddling. I think as we talk more in the community, it’s getting easier. We spoke at a local elementary school in February. Kelly Elementary has adopted our project and the charity: water fundraiser as part of a thematic school-wide educational curriculum.

Back to Tim — do you have any advice for people thinking about starting a campaign?
Do it! Start a campaign. The hardest part is thinking about it, so stop thinking, and just do it. You can make a difference. The smallest amount of money raised helps. You don’t have to do an expedition or a journey to raise money for clean water. Be a voice. Learn. Educate. Persevere. Start a campaign and show the world what people are going through.

campaign: Boston College Water for Schools 2012
raised so far: $7,111
campaign goal:$20,000
mission statement: “Bcharity: water is an initiative started by students whose goal is to bring awareness of the global water crisis while raising money to support the charity: water campaign.”

How did you hear about the water crisis and charity: water?
I heard about how incredibly vast the water crisis is through charity: water. I followed charity: water on Twitter to use their wallpaper for my background and very briefly researched them before my trip to World Youth Day in Madrid. My experiences in Spain on the Magis Pilgrimage prior to World Youth Day played a key role in fostering my interest in the world water crisis and charity: water.

What inspired you to start a group at Boston College to support charity: water?
It started after my seven-day pilgrimage across Basque country in Spain. During the 97-mile hike, my group suffered from dehydration and at times, heat stroke. Magis, meaning more, was a program for participants of World Youth Day from Jesuit institutions around the world. These experiences were meant to help participants find more in their relationship with God by encouraging seeing God in all things. I was all for this, but I had no idea I was going to be hiking for seven days. I thought it was a bus ride. Little did I know, I was in for a huge surprise.

The last three days of the hike were incredibly hot. It was blazing dry heat and no shade. We walked from pretty much 6 a.m. to 5 p.m… I was constantly thinking about the fact that, after the three days were over, I was gonna be back in Madrid having access to all this water — as much as I wanted. Before school started, I texted a friend who lived close by: “You know, maybe we can make a difference.”

Boston College is known for its social justice and equality movements, and it really encourages students to take initiative. We’re encouraged to be men and women for others. I showed my friend the Water Changes Everything video and he immediately supported the cause.

We chose to stick with charity: water and we came back to campus and pitched it to lots of people: Campus Ministry, the Carroll School of Management, our business school, the Office of Student Programs and many others were really supportive.

What are some ways you’ve been fundraising so far?
We wanted to kick it off with something very educational, but not so educational as to make people not want to go. It was a very casual kick-off. We had local restaurants donate food, there were performances and a student presented about the education system in Africa and how water relates to education. People were just with their friends, eating and learning a lot at the same time — not just about charity: water, but the global water crisis in general. We raised more than (I think) $500, even though our goal that night wasn’t even to raise that much money, it was just to get the word out there that we’re on campus.

Do you have other events planned during the campaign?
We have things like the Penny Pledge, where we encouraged faculty and staff to pledge or donate one penny for every dollar that our group donated. We hoped we could have faculty from all four schools at Boston College get together and say, “This is the cause that we all believe in and just something that we can all make a difference in.”

We’re also selling t-shirts, passing out Boloco burritos in return for donations, having a charity: water dance, having a show, and hosting benefit dinners.

The thing we all like about charity: water is that it’s very matter-of-fact. It’s very tangible and very relatable, so that’s the approach we want to take, too.

Have there been difficulties that maybe you didn’t expect?
Yeah, definitely. Becoming an organization on campus has been really hard. Right now, we’re an organization through Campus Ministry, but we don’t get funding. We are a start-up group and this is its first year at BC. We don’t know of any other group that has done this before, so we don’t really have anyone to ask for advice. We’ve received a lot of help, but it’s taken a lot of persistence to be able to get to where we are now.

Another difficulty would be selling the product. I think most of the people on BCharity: water’s staff are in the business school, and we know that even though these causes are very worthwhile and very important, it comes down to being able to sell the cause and sell how important it is.

Is there anything that took you by surprise doing this campaign?
It’s how generous people can be once they’re given the information, how much one person is capable of and how much eight people are capable of. I didn’t plan to have something this big. I was just thinking that I don’t want people, seven-year-olds, walking like I did — but for their whole lives.

My friends and I talk about the campaign a lot. Although it’s hard to believe that we’re making a difference, at the end of the day, we always remind each other that we are. The fact that we’ve already raised $7,000 amazes me. It’s far from our goal, but it makes such a difference. The numbers give me something to really hold on to.

So do you have a vision for the group going forward?
We’re hoping to reach our $20,000 goal and really get the word out there. Our tentative plan is to have a campaign every first quarter of each year. Right now, it’s a big boom on campus, because they’ve never heard of charity: water. We definitely do want to establish a club on campus where charity: water will benefit from it.

Any advice for people who want to start a campaign?
Do it because you want to do it. For me, I experienced that dehydration and witnessed the heatstroke: it touched me very personally.

There have been a lot of obstacles where school work is tugging at me on one end and the campaign is tugging me on the other. It’s something I really want to do. Know that someone out there is benefiting from your work. It’s hard to grasp but it’s true, it’s real, and it’s worth it.