St. Paul Catholic School Participates in 2015 Project Living Water

St-Paul-Project-Living-Water-Collage-2015Saint Paul Catholic School is saving the lives of people who live on the other side of the world: by giving them clean water.

On February 27, the Saint Paul School Community kicked off Project Living Water as part of our Lenten sacrifice. Partnered with Widow’s Mite Experience, the Saint Paul students staff and family started a fundraiser that will ultimately deliver fresh water wells to two different communities in a Third World Country.

Diane Cooley of Widow’s Mite Experience spoke to the students after mass on Friday, Feburary 27th. She showed the students a baby bottle full of dirty water and explained that in many communities, mothers have no choice but to feed this water to their babies. Babies need water and unfortunately this is all they can get from dirty rivers and streams. Each student was given a store purchased bottle of water with a label that said, “Enjoy this water, then fill the bottle with coins and return it to help others have clean water.”

Within a week, the bottles full of coins started coming back to school. By April 10, Saint Paul school had raised over $4,000 for Project Living Water. A well costs $1800, so Widow’s Mite Experience will be able to provide two villages with fresh water wells. They will also be able to provide residents with items such as a water filtering Jerry Can and a water carrying backpack.

These are not the first wells that have been provided for by Saint Paul Catholic School. For three years from 2010-2013, this was a 4th grade project for Mrs. Kate Bogan’s and Mrs. Kathy Olson’s classrooms. Kathy Olson learned about the project from her longtime friend Diane Cooley.

The generosity of our students and families is overwhelming! This project really touched the hearts of our children. The thoughts of other children having nothing but dirty water to drink really made our students think about the simple things that we here in the USA take for granted.