My birthday wish this year was to give clean and safe drinking water to some of the billion living without it. I turned 9 years old on Dec 13, and instead of wishing for gifts, I asked for $9 or more from everyone I know and I reached my goal of raising $200.

All of it is going to build freshwater wells for people in Africa. A billion people in the world are living without clean water. 45,000 people will die this week alone from contaminated water. The lucky ones won't, but still walk hours each day to get water for their families, and it's not even clean.

Now my Christmas wish is to help even more people. With $20 you can help 1 kid get clean water for the next 20 years. How many kids can we help together? Please join me in helping them.

Charity: Water can build a well for $5,000. My parents will match the first $2,500 you donate so we all together can bring safe water to a whole village, something we all took for granted on our Christmas table.

Jade