On June 28th, I will turn 18! Yippee! On June 28th, I will also be at science camp in West Virginia. While I won't be able to celebrate my birthday in Mandeville, I want to give other people a reason to celebrate.

I believe that access to clean water is a human right. Pathogen-related diseases from contaminated surface water cause more deaths in children than malaria, AIDS, and measles combined (about 1.5 million a year). Collectively, women spend 200 million hours a day collecting water. This keeps girls from attending school and women from providing income for their families. That's not cool.

Instead of getting me a gift this year, I would love it if you could donate money to help build a well. Or you could, you know, show this website to your credit card-bearing parental units.

I've researched charity: water a lot. Because the organization uses outside fundraising for management and publicity, 100% of the money you donate will go directly to the water project. Here is the Charity Navigator information:
http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=12548

For more information about the need for clean water, check out Water.org

With water, people can throw super awesome birthday parties. I don't know from experience, but I would assume that parties are kind of lame when you're dehydrated.