ECOsmarte and our philanthropically inclined customers welcome any charitable ideas involving water, people, sustainable development and planet health. Let's all work together to make this world a better, healthier place. Philanthropy is desperately needed, and it feels good to give.
Here's a sampling of what ECOsmarte and our customers have been up to lately...
As part of ECOsmarte's commitment to sustainable development, we agreed, over 5 years, to fund a library in Kenya through the 19 year old St Paul MN organization "Books for Africa".
They facilitate the recycling of American text books as well as donated books, and have shipped over 15 million books to Africa since 1988. A key "Kilimanjaro" member of this organization is new ECOsmarte customer Ruth Knoll from Ann Arbor MI, who loves to call herself the "Photoshop Widow" as her husband wrote the program. She has her own software credentials as well - very technical stuff for people who travel regularly to Tanzania as volunteers to coordinate Books for Africa. We might have to solicit them to institute a Dewey Decimal system at ECOsmarte HQ!
In addition, we have donated a second water truck to Healing Haiti that will deliver 90,000 gallons of clean water each week. The truck will fill water cisterns for orphanages, hospitals and schools, and will also distribute water directly to the poor on a bucket-by-bucket basis in Cite Sole, Haiti. The truck has been purchased and will arrive in Haiti by August, 2007, and will immediately be put into service. Healing Haiti is a mission of Buya.org, a non-profit organization founded and initially funded by ECOsmarte customers and stockholders Alyn Shannon and Jeff Gacek.
A note from Jeff Gacek:
For the philanthropic readers who would like to help, Healing Haiti is in deperate need of a sponsor to fund needed repairs and maintenance on their first water truck that is currently running in Haiti. This truck is listing badly to one side (see picture below) because of bad springs and air bags, but continues to deliver water to people who have none. Contact Healing Haiti for more information or visit their website at Buya.org.
Haiti is the poorest country and Cite Sole is the worst slum in the western hemisphere. According to the UN, 1 in 8 babies in Haiti will die before the age of 5 from curable or treatable diseases. The most common cause of illness is malnutrition caused by children drinking unclean water with bacteria and parasites that cause nutritional value of food to wash right through them because of the diarrhea it causes. While US children have the time of their lives at Disneyworld, 90 minutes away by plane, the children of Haiti fight for their lives.
Water is easy for most people to take for granted - not in Haiti. Join us in helping these people get one of their most basic needs met - clean water.
Comments (1)
Nice overview and layout on the Haiti relief effort-- we have some big plans to desal the ocean water to go from the emergency relief effort to a long run sustainable plan with our dollars. we are soliciting Ecosmarte partner vendors for this expensive effort in the middle term. We need the gasoline and repair money-- just a few hundred dollars per month-- I have a free commercial size city or well water system for anyone who steps up to the plate with a $6000 annual pledge. We have about 15000 people swimming in bottled water that might like to have this in their shower and bottled water at every cold faucet. Email directly with me, this is tax deductible in full as the money will go to www.buya.org and the unit will be installed anywhere in North America or western Europe. LC CEOl
Posted by larry couture | May 31, 2007 6:28 AM