Water is life’s most basic need. Therefore, everyone on Earth needs clean, safe drinking water.
That’s the message of the organization called mycharity:water. The charity was the cause that 9-year-old Rachel Beckwith, of Bellevue, sought dona
tions for this summer, rather than receive presents on her June 12 birthday. Rachel died over the weekend after being taken off life support. She was critically injured in a 13-vehicle crash on I-90 last Wednesday.
Rachel set a goal to raise $300 for the charity. By her birthday, she had raised $220 and her web page seeking donations was closed.
After the accident, a pastor from her church, Ryan Meeks, arranged for the web page to be revived, the Seattle Times reported. The donations began to pour in, the paper reported, and so far total more than $220,000.
What would move a soon-to-be 9-year-old to forgo presents in favor of helping others? On her web page, which was set up in May, Rachel wrote:
“On June 12th 2011, I’m turning 9. I found out that millions of people don’t live to see their 5th birthday.”
One billion people on the planet (that’s one in eight people) don’t have access to safe, clean drinking water, according to mycharity:water. Diseases from unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation kill more people every year than all forms of violence. Ninety percent of the 30,000 deaths that occur every week from unsafe water and unhygienic living conditions are of children younger than 5 years old. The United Nations predicts that one-tenth of the global disease burden can be prevented simply by improving water supply and sanitation, the charity reports.
On her web page, Rachel noted that every penny raised goes directly to fund freshwater projects, which are all documented.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, dedicated as it is to eradicating disease, is getting back to basics with $42 million in grants to fund toilet innovations for developing countries. Funding vaccinations and other disease-fighting interventions make little sense when people don’t have clean water to drink.
Rachel Beckwith, not yet 9, was moved by the suffering of children younger than herself. She was moved enough to take action. Her generosity of spirit has since motivated thousands to donate to the charity.
As one donor on her web page comments: “Your daughter made more of a difference in her tragically short life than most people do with a lifetime. She is what we strive for our children to be like and I know you will be forever proud that although she is gone, she saved the lives of so many.”
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