More than half of Haiti's 8 million people lack access to safe drinking water, exposing them to serious and sometimes deadly waterborne diseases like bacterial diarrhea, hepatitis and typhoid fever. Although fresh wells can provide clean water, Haitians frequently lack the financial resources to dig them.
That's where the youth of Chicago First Church of the Nazarene come in. Through their own initiative called Liquid Hope, the 150-member youth group sold custom-branded bottled water to raise money to help the Church of the Nazarene's Haiti Water Project dig wells. (In 2008, Americans consumed about 8.7 billion gallons of bottled water, reports the Beverage Marketing Corporation.)
"I wanted to challenge my teenagers to do big, kingdom-focused things that would bring healing to the world," says Tim Britton, the church's co-youth pastor. "So we developed a plan to help the global water crisis. There are [more than] a billion people in our world who don't have access to clean water."
The group ordered bottles of water with custom labels for about 51 cents a bottle, or $12.35 a case. The youth hoped to sell 10,000 bottles for $2 each, or $50 a case, to raise $15,000 -- enough to dig five wells that will be a continuing source of clean water for an estimated 10,000 Haitians. They ended up raising $12,000.
Youth sold the water bottles to congregants at the 1,000-member church, their neighbors and students in the church's college group. Many buyers purchased caseloads and sent individual bottles to friends and family to spread the word about the need for clean water in Haiti and the mission of Liquid Hope.
"It has expanded the youth group's world view throughout the process," Britton says of Liquid Hope. "Through it, students participate and become agents of reconciliation between the consumption of Americans and the suffering of broken countries."
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