Clean Water Project
Feb 23, 2010 08:31 PM Filed in: Community
You may have read elsewhere about Katie Spotz. She is currently two-thirds of the way across the Atlantic Ocean; she is ROWING from Senegal in Africa, to Cayenne in French Guiana.
Katie is an amazing 22 year old. She’s already run across the Mojave Desert, swam the length of the Allegheny River (325 miles), rode her bike across the US, competed in an ultra-marathon and came in first in her age group in a half-Ironman triathlon.
Now, she’s rowing to raise money for clean water, in cooperation with the Blue Planet Run foundation. Her goal was originally to raise enough money to provide 1000 people in Haiti (this was before the earthquake) with clean water for life. Amazingly, it takes just $30 to provide one person with that all-to-rare commodity. So, she was looking for $30,000. I just checked her website, http://rowforwater.com, and she is now over $48,000. Our Chagrin Valley Rotary Club helped raise a good chunk of that for her.
How does the $30 per person come in?
Here’s the deal: a surprisingly simple innovation by a Foundation called Aqua Clara. They freely license their technology. These augmented bio-sand filters can be built from commonly available materials, last for a long time, and typically cost about $17 to build. The $30 is a generous round-up. One of these Aqua Clara-designed filters can provide clean water for a family, not just a person. Ingredients are a small trash can, some PVC pipe, rock, gravel, sand, a quarter-cup of brass powder or filings, and some help from nature. That’s it.
Tomorrow I’ll tell you about the day I spent with the Case Western EWB (Engineers Without Borders) group, learning how to make these. The EWB are planning trips to the Dominican Republic, Cameroon and Thailand this summer to train and assist the locals with building these life-changers.
Today, one billion people in the world do not have access to clean water...that’s a little more than one in six people.
Katie is an amazing 22 year old. She’s already run across the Mojave Desert, swam the length of the Allegheny River (325 miles), rode her bike across the US, competed in an ultra-marathon and came in first in her age group in a half-Ironman triathlon.
Now, she’s rowing to raise money for clean water, in cooperation with the Blue Planet Run foundation. Her goal was originally to raise enough money to provide 1000 people in Haiti (this was before the earthquake) with clean water for life. Amazingly, it takes just $30 to provide one person with that all-to-rare commodity. So, she was looking for $30,000. I just checked her website, http://rowforwater.com, and she is now over $48,000. Our Chagrin Valley Rotary Club helped raise a good chunk of that for her.
How does the $30 per person come in?
Here’s the deal: a surprisingly simple innovation by a Foundation called Aqua Clara. They freely license their technology. These augmented bio-sand filters can be built from commonly available materials, last for a long time, and typically cost about $17 to build. The $30 is a generous round-up. One of these Aqua Clara-designed filters can provide clean water for a family, not just a person. Ingredients are a small trash can, some PVC pipe, rock, gravel, sand, a quarter-cup of brass powder or filings, and some help from nature. That’s it.
Tomorrow I’ll tell you about the day I spent with the Case Western EWB (Engineers Without Borders) group, learning how to make these. The EWB are planning trips to the Dominican Republic, Cameroon and Thailand this summer to train and assist the locals with building these life-changers.
Today, one billion people in the world do not have access to clean water...that’s a little more than one in six people.
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