Did you know that every day 1.8 billion people go without safe drinking water and 2.4 billion live without adequate sanitation? More than 2,000 people die every day because of diarrhea caused by inadequate drinking water, sanitation and hand hygiene. The mission of Water Mission is to bring safe drinking water and sanitation systems to these people. Go to https://watermission.org/water-crisis/ for more information.
On Saturday, August 27, 2016 over 130 St Louis residents walked to raise awareness of these staggering figures and to raise money for Water Mission. We met at the Kirkwood Park Amphitheater and listen to a speech about the Water Mission. At 8:30 we took five gallon buckets to Walker Lake, filled them with uncleansed lake water and carried the buckets for about three miles through the streets of Kirkwood. This is the distance many children have to walk every day to bring dirty water back to their villages. When we returned to Kirkwood Park, we put the water in a machine to purify the liquid. This is type of machine that Water Mission builds in the villages of developing countries to bring potable water to these villages.