I have way too much stuff in my life right now, and every birthday it seems as though I get more. I am truly grateful for what is given to me, but I tend to wonder: could the money spent on this be used for something immensely more beneficial?

In 2006, the United Nations came out with the Human Development Report, which stated that one child dies from a lack of clean water every 20 seconds. This equals out to about 1.6 million children dying each year. One-sixth of the world's population doesn't have access to clean water, and have to use only the dirty water that is available.

On my trip to Haiti, our group rode through the same river everyday on a truck. Body fluids, used car oils, soaps, and other chemicals were constantly being added to the water, but this was also the same river that the Haitians had to wash clothes, themselves, and get drinking and cooking water out of. Not only is this just gross sounding, but it is the cause of many diseases, sicknesses, and deaths, especially with the cholera outbreak that has recently affected the country. Thankfully, this can be changed.

On a seemingly unrelated note, my 19th birthday is July 31! For my 18th, I was incredibly blessed to spend it with Northwest Haiti Christian Mission in Bonneau and St. Louis du Nord, digging a giant hole for the foundation of a new special needs orphanage. I’m still bummed that I’m not able to go back for my 19th birthday, but I still wanted to make some kind of impact for others, rather than it being all about me. That’s the reason for me starting this campaign, so that others can have something that I find myself taking for granted and hardly thinking about.

In lieu of anything at all for myself, I’m only asking for donations for this campaign, which would go towards providing clean water to those who lack it; you can see from the graphics above where exactly any donations would go to. $500 in the grand scheme of things is in no way a lot of money, nor does 25 people seem like a lot. I can guarantee, however, that those 25 people will be infinitely more grateful for clean water than I would be with more money (no offense at all).

Thank you so much for even stopping to look at this page. I’m praying that something awesome will come out of this (and that the $500 goal will be blown out of the water :-) ).