After many months of anticipation, my donors and I got word that the charity:water birthday project completed last year has moved to the next step in the process. Here’s what we learned!
Tag: charity:water
Leaving on a Jet Plane….Sort Of
I just received my first update from charity:water since the fundraising phase of my project began. The $1,000 we collected has now been sent to Ethiopia along with that collected by other projects, and the work will soon begin on the well.
I’m pretty sure all the wonderful, amazing, benevolent, swanky, hip, funky-fresh-for-the-nineties folks who donated will be getting these updates, but I also want to share them here so everyone can see that this charity works in a tangible way. In a year or so, we’ll actually have the GPS coordinates where the well can be found as well as pictures of it and the people it has blessed. I don’t know about you, but I’m stoked!
**FYI, if you click on the images, they are easier to read.**
Eight Days and Counting
Okay, I’m not a procrastinator. I’m detail oriented. I have three calendars to keep track of work, home, and school. But somehow, I misread my account information over at charity:water. YIKES! I thought I had until a week before my birthday to raise the $1,000 I was hoping to donate, but I actually only have a few days. Eight to be exact. So I need some help if I’m going to meet my goal!
The first thing you need to do is watch this:
Then you need to check into charity:water to see just how amazingly legit they are.
You can read about their mission.
You can learn about their 100% Model. Yes, all your money goes to building wells. All the overhead costs, salaries, and other little evils are covered by private donors.
You can even read their latest annual report. They have a four star rating AIP rating, which is pretty amazing.
The founder and CEO even has a great talk on YouTube if you have 40 minutes to spare.
Finally, you need to head on over to my donation page, which is here, and give whatever you can to help build a well in Tigray, Ethiopia.
In about eighteen months, everyone who donates to my birthday project will get an email with GPS coordinates showing where the well was built as and photos from the construction project.
Tigray is in the northernmost region of Ethiopia and is home to 4,316,988 people, only 54% of which have access to clean drinking water. According to the CSA, “31.6% of the inhabitants fall into the lowest wealth quintile; adult literacy for men is 67.5% and for women 33.7%; and the regional infant mortality rate is 67 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, which less than the nationwide average of 77; at least half of these deaths occurred in the infants’ first month of life.” You can see some gorgeous shots of the country and its people here.
I’m really looking forward to seeing where the money goes, so much so that I wish I could raise the entire $1,000 by myself. But alas and alack, I am but one humble person who works for a non-profit organization. 🙂 That means I need all the help I can get. $5 to $500–every bit of it makes a difference. As of right now, I’m just shy of the halfway mark.
I’d be happy to do something painful or embarrassing if I knew it would help. I’ll gladly take suggestions!
Of Generosity and Snooty Norwegian Water
Imagine my surprise Thursday morning when I looked in my inbox and saw that I had not one, but two donations to my charity:water project, Aqua Jade! I saw the two were for the same amount and from the same person, so I figured there must be a glitch in the notification system. However, when I logged on later, I saw that the person had, in fact, donated twice. Now, this may still prove to be a clerical error, and that’s just fine with me. I’m still stunned by her generosity.
Why? Because I have no idea who “Shawnee M” is. Literally no clue at all. And she gave me $100—my biggest donation yet.
She and I could pass one another on the street, offer to hold the door for each other, or even have a moment of polite conversation while waiting in line and never know that we are connected in one of the most intimate and wonderful ways possible—love and kindness.
This is the second donation I’ve gotten from someone I have no way to thank. Like Blanche DuBois, I’m “depending on the kindness of strangers” for this little attempt at helping others because there’s no way I can come up with that kind of scratch on my own. (I work for a non-profit for goodness sake.) And two people have already stepped up, one of them doing more than double what I did for the cause. She helped not one but four people gain access to clean drinking water by giving to someone who can never repay her for her kindness.
Shawnee M—whoever you are—know that you blessed me in a way you can never imagine. I can only give so much. But if my campaign and my story can get just a few wonderful people like you to help out, we can change the lives of an entire village full of people in Ethiopia. These are people who will never know the prosperity we enjoy every single day. It’s a privilege to serve them alongside you.
A project like this compels a person to see the world in new ways. What could easily be taken for granted are cause for introspection, a reason to question the “why” of things. Honestly, I don’t buy bottled water. Not because I’m against it for ecological reasons (though that thought has crossed my mind) but because, at home and at work, I have access to clean, cold, filtered water any time I want. I put it in cups or my wicked cool Marvel aluminum bottle that I got on sale for $2.50 at the Disney Store. (Yeah, I’m grown. What about it?)
So it’s only natural that I can glide on by the wall of water bottles at the local grocery store every time I run in there. (I don’t know about you, but if I don’t need something, I’m not wasting the time it takes to walk down the aisle.) Today though, still thinking about that $100, I took a look at the endless supply of bottles and thought about just how blessed I am.
I counted fifteen brands. Spring, drinking, purified, and even fluoridated. Flavored, flat, and sparkling. It comes in plastic bottles, ones made of glass, and even aluminum cans. It’s topped with everything from sport lids to screw-on tops. Man, we are truly spoiled for choice.
And this is something about which I must rant.
Of all the bottles on the shelf, which were arranged in order of price, Voss took the grand prize for cost. Two glass bottles of water for $5.00 (at a savings of $.50 mind you!) Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure it tastes great…you know, like water. And the bottle is quite well designed. It’s clean and simple, like something out of Tron. And, to Voss’ credit, they do have a foundation that supplies clean water to countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.
But there’s something in me, call it common sense, that just can’t fathom paying $2.50 for a bottle of water. Even if it is, in their words, “taken from a virgin aquifer that… has been shielded for centuries under ice and rock in the untouched wilderness of Central Norway.” It sounds like Superman’s Fortress of Solitude, not a bottle full of hydrogen and oxygen.
The money someone spends on eight bottles of this stuff could buy a lifetime of clean water for a person in need. Eight bottles is…counting on fingers….168.8 fluid ounces. A gallon is only 128. So for $20 you get less than a gallon and a half of water. Foundation or not, that’s ridiculous, Norway. You have some lovely fjords and were the birthplace of both Edward Munch and Henrik Ibsen. The Vikings were pretty awesome, too, as is the Nobel Prize.
A-ha wasn’t bad either. In fact, if I were an evil overlord bent on destruction, I would spare your frigid nation only because of “Take On Me.” But you can keep your snooty water.
Water > Grumpy Cat
Anyone who knows me is well aware of the love I have for Grumpy Cat.
If you aren’t aware of this amazing feline comedic gem, I highly suggest you click on over to her website or check out the many hilarious photos featuring her at Know Your Meme. I also highly suggest her YouTube page.
Grumpy Cat combines two of my favorite things in the entire world—cats and sarcasm. Granted, the sweet little kitty who is less than a year old is actually a very pleasant thing, but that doesn’t stop people from using her frowny face for their own comedic efforts. Three of my favorites in recent weeks have been….
I also take daily delight in her Twitter feed. Well, at least one of the many parodies…
That’s why when I saw a picture of this this week, I nearly had an aneurism, seizure, and ice cream headache all at once.
Yes, friends and neighbors, it’s a Grumpy Cat Hat. It’s made out of fleece. It’s handmade. It has lined ear flaps. And it’s only $26.50 in this Etsy Store. My life would be so much better if I possessed one of these amazing creations to keep my head warm in the coming months. Without doubt, it would generate questions everywhere I go and would serve as a boffo conversation starter. When wearing it, I could say, “Why yes, this is a Grumpy Cat Hat. I am indeed cooler than you because I own said item. Neener neener neener.” My smugness would know no bounds.
However, right after I posted it to my Facebook page, I realized that as happy as this little gewgaw might make me, that $26.50 could help someone in a developing country gain access to an endless, life changing supply of fresh water. That’s why I’ve donated my 35th birthday, which will take place on April 21st, to Charity:Water and have set up a campaign page there where people can make donations in lieu of giving me presents, cash, or other things that I can go without this year.
You can visit my page (and make a donation, ye scurvy dog!!) by clicking HERE.
My goal is to raise at least $1,000 this year in order to help 50 people. With access to clean water, they won’t die of preventable diseases. What’s more, they’ll have a chance to truly live because the time spent going back and forth to whatever sources are available can instead be spent starting a business, going to school, or caring for their families.
If you want to help me out, I’d love a donation of whatever you can spare. I know times are tight (and likely getting tighter), but it’s hard for me to say no to someone who’s is going without something I can draw a limitless of from the tap in my kitchen. And giving it to them is certainly a good thing.
Even Grumpy Cat has to agree with that.
