For past the six years Dean Gray, an American government teacher at Norwalk High School, has organized a student-led program known as Giving Charity to Charities.

The program calls for 12th-grade students in social studies classes to select a local, national or international charity organization to receive the proceeds from campus fundraising drives held by the students.

The selections are based on the personal interests or connections the students have to issues or causes. Since 2013, the program has raised a total of $75,000 that have gone to 54 different charities.

In addition to an annual winter student assembly on campus where the classes present their donations of $1,000 to charity group representatives, there are usually also acknowledgement letters or phone calls received by the school from each of the charity groups.

 

But this year, there was a special sort of thank you that was offered by Drop in the Bucket, which received a $1,000 donation from the students.

Drop in the Bucket, a Los Angeles- based organization that provides drinking water and sanitation systems to schools in African countries, passed along some photos of young students in Uganda expressing their gratitude. The shots showed the African youths with warm smiles holding a sign that said: “Thank You Norwalk High School.”

Gray was happy but not entirely surprised to see the kind messages. “It’s another success story of our kids making a difference in people’s lives. Fresh water. How awesome is that?” he said.

Bailey Martinez, 18, is the student who did the research to find a water-related charity to propose to classmates as a donation recipient. He found out that unlike some groups that just passed along funds to other organizations that perform the work, Drop in the Bucket was different. The nonprofit was directly involved with staff on-ground in the countries doing the labor to plan and develop the systems.

“That’s was one I really liked. I felt that they did the most and they’re based here in L.A. and thought that was con- venient,” Martinez said. “I think clean water is something we take for granted and it’s not something everyone has.”
Over a three-week period, Martinez along with more than 300 other seniors hawked chewy energy bars on campus
to fellow students and then also sold them off campus. All of the teams did fundraising in the same way for the same amount of time. A total of $13,000 was raised for 13 charities. An additional charity, Race to Erase Multiple Sclerosis, received $1,000 donated from a local golf tournament organized by teachers and staff.

“Every year it’s unique,” said Gray about the program. “The kids find new charities and new ways to help people. It’s very personal for them. And 54 total charities are impressive. It’s amazing to be a part of it.”

Nineteen students representing the teams, along with teachers involved in the program, were recognized at the Feb. 26 meeting of the Norwalk-La Mirada Unified School District Board of Education.

By Richard de la Torre

Welcome to Drop in the Bucket’s first update of 2018. We are proud to report that we ended last year on a fundraising high note. Although December has always been a successful month for donations, this year was exceptional! We thank you for your impressive generosity.  Your support makes all of our work possible!

As the crisis in South Sudan continues, refugees are packed into settlements and camps on the northern border of Uganda. And DROP remains dedicated to maintaining a presence in both countries.

Our drilling team in the Palabek Refugee Settlement at the northern border of Uganda has been working tirelessly to provide water to the camp and surrounding community. Since the beginning of the year, we have already drilled nine wells. Our goal is the maximize the dry season and drill another twenty new wells before May.

We are also planning to upgrade some of the high-yielding wells by adding solar pumps and multiple tap stands. This will allow the water points to serve more people and alleviate long lines.

Looking Forward

While Drop in the Bucket started as a water charity, our program now covers significantly more than just water.  In our February newsletter, we hope to share some information on the South Sudanese girls in our education program who are determined to graduate high school and not become lost to another generation of voiceless child brides.

Need a last minute gift idea? This year, give the gift of life!

Drop in the Bucket is making your gift shopping easy with this holiday e-card!

Need something for that hard-to-buy-for friend or relative? We’ve got you covered!

Go to our donation page and check the “Make this donation in someone’s name” box. Enter their name, email address, your message and select the amount you want to give and you are all set. No long lines at the register, no parking hassles, no crowds to contend with. And what better way to show someone you care than to help children in need.

Happy Holidays!

Drop in the Bucket is excited to launch our new initiative – The Dry Mouth Challenge.

663 million people in the world have never tasted a glass of clean water. We have designed to Dry Mouth Challenge to raise funds and awareness about the deadly water crisis.

The concept is simple – Can you eat 3 crackers in 30 seconds or less without the aid of water?

It sounds easy right? Well, why don’t you take the challenge?

Then when you are done you should challenge three friends of yours to see if they can do it.

It may be a little harder than you think.

Here is a video of our friends from Drops LA taking the challenge

To find out more about the challenge and to make a donation please go to www.drymouthchallenge.com

Every day, between 2,000 and 4,000 people cross the border from South Sudan to Northern Uganda seeking nothing more than survival.

Since the fighting broke out in 2013, more than 1.5 million people have fled South Sudan, making it the world’s fastest growing refugee crisis. More than half of these refugees have resettled in Northern Uganda. Fortunately for them, Uganda has one of the most welcoming refugee policies in the world. Refugees are not just given temporary shelter, they are also provided with land to settle and grow crops.

But this unprecedented mass influx is placing enormous strain on the country’s resources and local infrastructure. The UN estimates that it only has 14% of the funding necessary to meet the needs of the men, women and children in these camps.

In an effort to address the crisis, the government recently established Palabek Refugee Settlement in Lamwo District of northern Uganda. Palabek currently hosts 30,000 refugees and that number is growing daily. But the camp needs basic infrastructure to operate. There are currently no organizations drilling for water in the camp and the people are drinking water that is trucked in from a nearby river.

DROP teams are perfectly positioned to help with the crisis. Our drilling equipment is being mobilized now to Palabek. And our team has been warmly welcomed by everybody from aid agencies, national government and refugees because we have funding to start drilling the first five wells. But they will need more water!

This is where you can help! We are appealing to you, our donors, to help us raise funds for an additional ten wells. Any donation will help. In return, we will share photos during the drilling and keep you updated on our progress. By giving the settlement clean water, we can immediately start saving lives in what is being called Africa’s largest humanitarian crisis. Please click this link to make a donation.

 

Today is World Water Day and this year we decided to commemorate the day with a new video. The video is titled “How long do people in Africa walk to get water?”. The video attempts to frame the water crisis in a different way by setting the long walk for water, that people in Africa do every day, in an American location.

The video one was directed by Nathan Karma Cox and shot on location in Studio City, CA at Black Market Liquor who generously allowed us to shoot during the day before they opened. The video was produced by Cory Reeder and features music by Stone Sour drummer Roy Mayorga who played all of the instruments on the track including kazoo. Vocals were provided by Stone Sour guitarist Christian Martucci and the graphics were created by Rodrigo Gava from Gava Productions.

We are really happy with how the video turned out and are excited to release it today. Please help us get the word out by sharing the video on your social media pages or by making a donation.

Today is International Women’s Day and to commemorate it we decided to share the story of a woman we recently met in Uganda. Meet Betty.

 

For most of her life Betty has been a housewife who had to rely on her husband when she needed anything. Her family could not afford to send her to school and educating girls was not considered a priority. Betty is determined that her children will not fall into the same trap.

 

Betty has always been ambitious, but had a hard time finding anyone who would listen to her. One day, one of her neighbors told her about a local savings group he was a part of.  The non-profit organization Drop in the Bucket had drilled a well at local School and had set up the group. Her neighbor suggested that she come to a meeting to see if she was interested in joining. At the meeting, she saw her neighbors applying for loans and using them to start small businesses. She immediately knew she wanted to join.

 

Betty took her first loan of 100,000 UGX ($28) to Lake Kyoga where small boats would come in loaded with freshly caught fish. Betty inspected each boat as it came in seeking out the highest quality fish and haggling for the best price. Once she had spent all her money, she carried the fish back to town to the local market.

 

After making a small profit the first week selling to local vendors, she noticed that other towns would come to the market and buy fish from those vendors a higher price. The next day, she decided to wait for them on the road into town and sell to them directly. Her plan worked and soon she was making a much larger profit than any of the other vendors. She also noticed that people would pay more for dried fish, so she quickly learned that skill too.
Betty’s life has changed! All of her children are in school and she is proud of the fact that she can easily afford to feed, clothe and educate them. All Betty had ever hoped for was that someone would believe in her and give her a chance. That chance came when she joined the savings group. A small loan of just $28 changed the whole course of not just her life, but also the lives of her children.

 

Today we celebrate Betty and millions of other women like her. Women who can take something small and turn it into something powerful. Happy International Women’s Day! Today we celebrate together.

 

What does this photo of a child eating a bowl of rice have to do with economic empowerment?

Clean water is an essential first step of economic empowerment, but in order to create sustainable change you have to go much deeper than just water. Although Drop in the Bucket is mainly thought of as a water charity, drilling wells is just the first step. What happens when the wells break? Just like cars, computers or almost anything else that gets a lot of use, well pumps are eventually going to break. A routine repair that costs just a few dollars could leave a well broken if the community does not have enough money to fix it.

Savings groups are a logical solution to make sure that funds are always available to cover inevitable repairs. Built on community participation and access to funds, they are key to ensuring clean water for generations.

Drop in the Bucket’s community savings groups program consists of a highly structured system of saving, borrowing and lending money generated from local contributions, which provides a financial incentive for the community to keep the wells working. At each project we train local workers in basic pump maintenance and repair. These workers can then charge a fee from the community for their service. The goal is to create a sense of ownership and independence of the well. After the community has saved enough money to cover any repairs, community participants are invited to submit their ideas to the group for new business ventures.

Loans are voted on by association members, must be used for income-generating activities and paid back with interest. At the end of each year, the interest is divided among the group members. This not only provides a fund to cover maintenance on the well, but also provides an opportunity for the villagers to achieve financial independence.

So what does the photo have to do with our savings groups? Well, the child is eating a bowl of seasoned rice and the reason she is so happy is because rice is a treat where she lives in Uganda. What makes this day special is because there is no special occasion. It’s not her birthday, or Christmas, it’s just a normal day but she gets to eat the rice she loves.

Her mother is a member of a savings group set up to support the well Drop in the Bucket drilled at Father Omoding Primary School in Serere, Uganda. Her mother borrowed a small amount of money to get her business started and is now doing so well that her daughter can eat rice on days that aren’t holidays. Her financial independence is what puts a smile on her face. Her daughter’s smile might have something to do with how great her mom’s rice tastes.

In 2014 Drop in the Bucket drilled a well at the Dokolo Kamuda primary school in Soroti, Along with the well, we also formed a village savings group for the local community.

A savings group is a structured system of lending and borrowing money that had been developed for use in rural communities. The idea is to create a village level bank where the villagers are the customers and the owners.

Money is collected before we drill by the community. This money becomes seed money that group members can borrow from to start small businesses. The members pitch their ideas for money making businesses to the group and the group selects the ideas they want to fund. People often start with simple projects such as raising crops or livestock, but as time goes on the ideas tend to get more ambitious.

Loans are paid back with interest and at the end of each year, the group members get to divide up the money.

The Dokolo Kamuda savings group grew so large, that the members had to split into two groups. Robert is a member of Group Two.

Robert spent several years working as an assistant to a vet. He later branched out on his own administering medicine to sick animals and handling routine procedures like de-worming cattle.

When Robert first joined the savings group, he already owned three young bulls. He had been looking to buy a third and was having difficulty saving the money he needed. He joined the Dokolo Kamuda village savings group and submitted his plan to purchase a fourth bull. He explained to the group that with a fourth bull he would be able to earn money ploughing fields for all of the local farmers..

Robert explained that he was going to charge 80,000 UGX per acre and that it takes on average about 2-3 days to plough a full acre. Because there is so much farming in the area, his services would be in high demand. The group agreed to lend him the money and they set an interest rate and a schedule for the repayments.

The first year went better than expected, so now Robert has decided to get a second plough. Because the bulls are now more mature, he will be able to use two bulls per plough instead of putting all four on just one. This will enable Robert to get twice as many fields ploughed each week and will also help the entire community to plant more crops during this season.

Later this year Robert intends to purchase a motorcycle so that he can increase the area where he works. This is a purchase he intends to make without having to borrow money from the group as his ploughing business is booming. The Dokolo-Kamuda village savings group has made so many things possible for Robert and he is so happy he is was able to join and participate.

Savings groups are a perfect example of how a small amount of money can make a huge impact on someone’s life. We are very proud of the difference groups like Robert’s are making and it is very exciting to see all of the small businesses that spring up from each group. It’s like each well starts a chain reaction of empowerment that ripples out through the community. We are grateful to be able to do this work and grateful to our donors for making this all possible.