Water

-More than 1 billion people in the world are in need of clean water.
-More than 2.2 million people die each year from preventable diseases caused by contaminated water.
-More than one in six people on the planet don't have access to clean water
-In Africa half the population has no access to clean water, that's 360 million people.

This is a problem. This morning when I was making coffee I decided to use purified water out of the Brita filter instead of the tap. I actually had a choice to use purified water or purified water. This is s problem. I want to talk about two groups of people who are doing something about this.

Ethos Water provides consumers with the opportunity to donate to clean water projects in the developing world by buying a bottle of water. For each bottle of water purchased in the U.S. $.05 is donated to the Ethos water fund. The mission of Ethos water is "to help children around the world to get clean water and to raise awareness of the world water crisis." Since 2002 Ethos water has committed over $4.2 million in grants to it's beneficiaries. You can find Ethos water at Starbucks coffee companies. Make sure that you don't buy coffee there, just water. Not that I have any ethical problem with Starbucks, it's just that there coffee sucks. You can read more about ethos here.

Halfway There is a group of friends who decided to get together and do something about the water crisis in Africa. Half the population of Africa lacks access to clean water, that's 360 million people or another way to put it is 360,000,000 people. My friends decided that they should put there talents together and raise some money to dig wells. What they did was to make shirts and sell them. Here is how it works. You buy a t-shirt for $15 and 100% of the money goes into the ground to dig wells in Africa. How does that work? Well the people you buy the shirts from have already payed the tax, the shipping and the cost of the shirt. Another thing you could do is to buy 48 shirts for $196.00. This cost covers all the expenses and in turn you sell the shirts for $15-$20 each and all the money goes to wells. To learn more about this go to Halfway There.

Do something, do anything.