Please donate $10 for my 10th birthday for clean water for EVERYONE! Please share this with all of your friends!

I really have no idea what it's like to be thirsty, I mean really thirsty... like dying of thirst. I thought I knew what thirsty was and then I learned on BrainPop that over 800 million don't have access to clean water! That is 1 in 9 people! I wanted to learn more so my mom showed me charity: water and we looked up facts about the world's water crisis on the World Health Organization website. There were a lot of big numbers on there... like:

-30,000-40,000 people die each week from lack of clean water and hygiene... 5,000 children under 5 die each day! Like my brother Lucas!

-It would cost $10 billion dollars each year to fix the world's water problem.
I asked my mom if we have $10 billion dollars ... she said "no". I asked her if my Pops or Grandpop have $10 billion dollars ... she said "no". I asked her if President Obama has $10 billion dollars (...he does live in a huge mansion). I realized that $10 billion dollars must be a TON of money and maybe we could never fix the problem. I was starting to feel sad when my mom pointed out that $10 billion dollars is a lot for one person but not if everyone helps a little. She explained "perspective" to me and we looked up theses numbers online:

-The world spend $96 billion dollars each year on purses.
Which I did point out to her that she always wants to buy...

-The United States spends $20 billion dollars each year on pet food.

We buy good dog food for our dog Prince, and its not that expensive, so I started to understand that this is doable. $10 billion dollars is the same as if everyone who buys a bag or can of pet food, gave half that amount to fix the water problem, right?

-Europe spends $10 billion a year on ice-cream.

...Okay, thats when I started to really believe that the water crisis really could be fixed.. I mean ice-cream is mostly seasonal and that was just in Europe!

My mom and I saw lots of really sad pictures of kids that are sick and dying because of no clean water... I asked my mom what if I had been born there? I really want to help these kids so that they can have a 10th birthday. I really don't need anymore presents, it was just christmas.

The charity: water website has a lot of really cool solutions like drilled wells, spring protections and BioSand Filters that help provide clean water. I started this fundraising campaign to help charity: water build these types of projects around the world, but I can't do it with out your help.

Please make this birthday my best one by donating to my campaign -- anything you can give is a huge help. 100% of the money will be used to build clean water projects, and when they’re complete, charity: water will send us photos and GPS coordinates so we can see the exact community we helped.

Love,

Marc Thomas Silva

10 years old on 1/23/2014