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“I’ve found that the more I give, the bigger my world gets.”

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Even the charity: water staff who’ve never met Sarah Peck know her name. She’s famous in our office. Not for the number of campaigns that she’s run or even the amount of money she’s raised… but forone very crazy promise she made years ago.

It was 2012. 28-year-old Sarah had just heard charity: water’s founder, Scott, speak at Chris Guillebeau’s World Domination Summit, and she was fired up. She wanted to do something to help bring clean water to people in need, and there wasn’t time to wait.

Within 48 hours, Sarah had created her fundraising campaign. She set a $29,000 goal (for her 29th birthday) and announced her terms:

“If enough people donate a crazy amount of money, I promise to swim from Alcatraz to San Francisco in the murky, cold waters — in nothing but my birthday suit.”

Yep. You read that correctly. Sarah Peck volunteered to swim 1.5 miles in freezing cold water, wearing only a swim cap, to raise money for clean water.

“Water is incredibly important to me because it’s what makes me feel at home. I have the luxury of splashing around in giant bodies of water and I realized that some people don’t have enough to stay clean, I want to change that.”

The first $7,000 came quickly. But soon things started to slow down. Even though $29 donations were coming in from all over the place, it still felt like the needle wasn’t moving. That’s when Sarah’s competitive side really came out.

“I made it my personal mission for several weeks to ask as many people as I could — and to ask everyone I came in contact with, whether or not I knew them! I ended up taking taxis and using the ride time to share the story, and drivers would donate my fare or a cup of coffee to the cause, and I’d translate that into donations.”

With the help of 460 donations, Sarah didn’t just reach her $29,000 goal, she surpassed it. Her final tally: $32,398. Which meant that it was time to push aside fears of sharks, tides and giant ships and fulfill her promise.

She studied tide charts, hired a boat captain, notified the Coast Guard. And on a cold day at the end of September 2012, she became a charity: water legend.

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It’s fair to call it crazy. Everyone at charity: water calls it crazy. Sarah herself called it crazy.

But crazy is what makes it memorable. Crazy is what inspired hundreds of donors. And, in this case,crazy is what brought clean water to more than 650 people in Ethiopia.

“At the end of the day, my discomfort came from being cold for about an hour, and breaking through some of my social insecurities to ask people for money — that’s nothing compared to not having access to water.”

In addition to the people who took part in her campaign, and the taxi drivers and baristas she befriended, Sarah has inspired every one of us. Our slogan, “the craziest thing we can do is nothing,” was written with her in mind. And her campaign is one we will share forever.

Thank you, Sarah, for giving your voice, your time and your humility to our cause. Here’s to the crazy ones, indeed.

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“The world is not transactional. Love and light are expansive. Giving isn’t part of a zero-sum game. When you give, you don’t lose — you get something else in return, and the world keeps moving.”

-Sarah Peck, one of the crazy ones

charity: water Sarah Peck nothingiscrazy