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People from around the world join together to recognize how water connects us all.
Have you ever been thirsty in the middle of the night and shuffled a few steps to grab a glass of water? Or perhaps you’ve had a dry mouth on a hot day and quickly filled up a bottle with ice and water? We can all likely name everyday thirst-quenching scenarios that seem simple. We might even take our access to clean and safe drinking water for granted.
That’s why every year on March 22, the global community comes together to celebrate World Water Day and bring awareness to this precious resource. Water is a basic human need, and yet more than two billion people around the world lack access to clean and safe drinking water.
The Louisville Water Foundation supports the important work of two organizations that address this need. WaterStep is a local nonprofit, that responds to critical needs for safe water in the developing world, and in response to disasters in the US and beyond. Healing Waters International, ensures entire communities transform physically, socially, economically, and spiritually through access to clean water. This year’s grant awards will:
- WaterStep: Support the ability to respond to safe water and sanitation in emergencies across the world, including disasters, both man-made and natural. Specifically, a Disaster Response Trailer, response teams will be able to not only distribute safe drinking water and sanitation to individuals, but also support other disaster response units, such as shower, food, and laundry units onsite.
- Healing Waters International: Support access to potable water in four impoverished communities in Chiapas, Mexico. The goal in each of these communities is for 80% or more of the families to drink and use purified water daily…for the first time ever.
At Louisville Water, our employees also find ways to recognize this important day. For example, the Outreach and Education team will visit a leadership group at Chancey Elementary as a follow up to an early March ‘Water Changes Everything’ lesson. During this class, our team taught students about the early days of water in Louisville before we had a reliable water utility and how other communities still don’t have access to clean water. The students were inspired by the lesson and launched a shoe drive to help WaterStep collect hundreds of pairs of shoes. Shoe drives assist the organization in raising the funds needed to support water projects around the world.
“Following the program, the 4th/5th grade Gifted and Talented Leadership group met with our school wide Student Council (one representative from each classroom) so that they could “run” the [WaterStep shoe drive] project in each of their classrooms. The donation boxes are located out in the lobby and after one week we already have TONS of shoes,” said Ms. Baucom, Gifted and Talented Enrichment Teacher.
The Outreach and Education team will return to the school and give goodie bags to the class who collected the most shoes as a way to say thank you for their great work.
This World Water Day, we practice gratitude of for our access to clean water and we encourage you to join us in finding ways to address the global clean water crisis.
