When I was 20 I went to Africa, experienced a lot but never thought much about water, and how much it impacts the entire world. Looking back at my experience, I remember seeing families with nothing; drinking, bathing, and cooking in dirty water. I would see women with barrels of dirty water balanced on their heads, while I went around drinking clean water.

A billion people in the world are living without clean water - but how much are they really living? Millions contract deadly diseases from contaminated water. 45,000 people will die this week alone. The lucky ones won't, but still walk hours each day to get dirty water to give to their families.

I never thought much about clean water and how big of a blessing it is until about 5 months ago. I was at a concert and the singer was talking about charity: water. She gave up her birthday to raise raise money to dig wells in developing countries. I came home checked out the website. Now its all I can think about.

So I decided I want to give up my birthday. All of my birthdays have always been about stuff. Stuff I don't want, stuff I definitely don't need. And to be honest, I hardly even remember what I got last year.

On April 18th, I'm turning 26 years old, and instead of asking for gifts, I'm asking for $26 or more from everyone I know. It's not going to me, though. All of it is going to build freshwater wells for people in developing nations.

My birthday wish this year is not for more gifts I don't need- it's to give clean and safe drinking water to some of the billion living without it. I want to make my birthday matter this year.

Please join me. I may not have talked to you in years, or I may have seen you yesterday. Whatever the case don't hesitate to give, together we can make a difference.

please note: Because of charity: water's unique model, 100% of all donations go directly to direct water projects costs, and each donation is "proved" and tracked to the village it helped when projects are complete.

Thank you

Adam