St. Anthony middle schoolers raise $10,000 for H20 for Life

Alex Holmquist
Bulletin Staff

Clean water is something that we may take for granted, but more than a billion people around the world don’t have that luxury.

St. Anthony Middle School has partnered with H20 for Life, a nonprofit, all-volunteer organization lead by teachers, parents and students that raises money to provide clean water, sanitation and hygiene education for schools in developing nations.

More than 1.1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water, and about 2.5 billion people don’t have access to adequate sanitation facilities. A child dies every 20 seconds from a water-related disease, and water-related diseases are the leading cause of death for children under the age of 5.

But H20 for Life and its partners are working to change those statistics.

This year, St. Anthony Middle School was paired with Kirangari Primary School in Kenya, and held several fundraisers so that Kirangari students could have access to clean water and sanitation facilities. They raised money through a dodge ball tournament, silent auction, a donation from the student council and the sale of H20 for Life water bottles.

They hosted their final fundraiser of the year, a “Water Walk,” May 27 at Central Park in St. Anthony. Students collected pledges for walking in the event, and some carried 40-pound jugs of water, which young girls and women in Africa spend hours doing each day.

At the Water Walk, co-founder and executive director of H20 for Life, Val Johnson, announced to the students that they had raised a total of $10,000.

“You raised a lot of money and you saved lives,” she told them.

Full steam ahead
H20 for Life started in 2007 as an individual project at Highview Middle School in New Brighton, and Johnson, who grew up in the New Brighton area, said she takes pride in the fact that that’s where H20 for Life got its roots.

Highview’s initial goal was to raise $10,000 for a water project in the Kwa Kasolo area in Kenya so that more than 2,000 of its residents could have access to clean water and sanitation.

The 900 Highview middle schoolers exceeded that goal by raising $13,000, and H20 for Life has been growing ever since.

So far, H20 for Life has partnered with 431 schools to fund 308 water projects in developing nations.

Though most of the schools that raise the funds for the projects are in the U.S., other schools from across the globe have participated as well. H20 for Life also partners with churches, clubs, businesses and other organizations to fund projects.

To receive the funds, communities must be able to provide the labor to complete the project and maintain the water system once it’s installed. Schools are paired with a project that fits their fundraising goals, and 100 percent of the contributions go directly towards funding the project. H20 for Life’s overhead costs are covered by donations from businesses and family foundations, Johnson said.

Making a difference
Johnson started out as a parent volunteer for H20 for Life’s initial project at Highview Middle School, but said she was compelled to do more after learning how many people lack access to clean water.

Patty Hall, a teacher at Highview Middle School who is also a co-founder of H20 for Life, gave a service learning presentation and discussed water and sanitation issues that some countries face.

“I had no idea there was a water crisis,” Johnson said. “It just floored me that kids were still carrying water … that people had no place to use as a latrine. It just seemed remarkable that in this day and age that this type of condition still existed around the world.”

Johnson eventually left a 35-year career in the restaurant and hospitality industry to lead the organization, but said the change was well-worth it.

“I wake up every day and get to see kids doing great things,” she said.

Adults may see the water crisis as an insurmountable obstacle, Johnson added, but kids seem to take it in stride.

“As adults, we see it as overwhelming,” Johnson said. “But the kids don’t.”

And St. Anthony middle schoolers haven’t just been having fun raising money for the cause — they’ve also been learning about the water crisis as well.

H20 for Life aims to educate students about water and sanitation issues by helping teachers integrate the subject into their curriculum, and provides teachers with materials and resources to help them do this.

Sixth grade humanities teacher Ginny Kagol teaches a three-week unit dedicated to the water crisis around the world. This provides St. Anthony students with an opportunity to see how serious the problem is, Kagol said, and also shows them how they can help solve it.

Kagol teaches students the importance of conserving water and that they need to give back not just to the local community, but the global community as well.

“The students do understand it’s a life and death issue,” Kagol said. “And they understand they can make a difference.”

Kagol said she was touched by the students’ willingness to support the cause, and that they and other members of the community have been very generous. Every penny counts, she added.

Seeing results
Johnson and Hall have both visited Africa to see projects that H20 for Life has funded.

They paid for the trips out of their own pockets, and Johnson said the trips have allowed them not just to spot-check the projects, but to meet the kids whose lives have been touched by their efforts. The students they have met are eager to learn, she said, and sometimes cram into make-shift classrooms with dirt floors and mud walls just so they are able to do so.

Having access to water and sanitation facilities at school makes a major difference for children in developing nations, Johnson added. It leads to higher attendance rates since students don’t have to spend their days hauling water or at home sick because they’ve contracted a water-related disease.

“It’s just remarkable to see these kids, how grateful they are,” Johnson said.