#9: Raise $1,000 for Charity

First and foremost I want to say THANK YOU to everyone who helped me reach this goal. I absolutely could not have crossed this off the list without all your support and generosity. Together, we smashed the goal of $1,000 and ended up raising $1,400 for The Water Project. Thank you to friends, co workers and parents that got me started, and thank you to the Bass Family for the big push in the end.

Originally I wanted to do some sort of charitable work for my 30 before 30 project. I felt like I was in a position to make a meaningful donation to a charity, but then I thought with a little effort, I could probably do better than that. I decided to raise money instead of making a single donation, so that we could all make a bigger impact. The difficult part was identifying a charity to work with. At first I wanted to find a local project, but living in Fairfax County made that difficult. This area is so affluent that $1,000 really wouldn’t go that far. And that got me thinking about people who lack for the most basic of human needs.

Those of you that know me well know that I’ve been slightly obsessed with Africa ever since taking an African Geography class in college (and yes, that actually fulfilled some sort of requirement). Africa is the continent I would most like to visit, and it is my dream to climb Kilimanjaro someday. (Due to time restraints that did not make it on the 30 list). So I thought it was fitting to work with The Water Project and their mission to build wells in impoverished African villages. Truly, without water, no other progress can be made. You can send medical supplies, seeds to grow, and other goods; but without water, none of it will help.

The money that we raised will combine with the money from a few other donors and will change an entire village forever. The folks at The Water Project will be sending me the location of our well, as well as pictures documenting the building process. I’ll be sure to forward it along once I have it, so you can all see the impact that you helped make.

Thank you again for your support. I was truly overwhelmed by your generous response, and I couldn’t have done this without you.

26 down; 4 to go