httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNgEd0g1zUA&feature=youtu.be
Video by Taylor du Pont & Kate Howard
Taylor du Pont & Kate Howard
Associate Multimedia Editor & Editor-in-Chief
The charity driven and education promoting organization, Free the Children, strives to empower youths to free the Earth’s population of the cycle of poverty. On April 22, the New Canaan High school Free the Children club held a Water Walk Fundraiser at Waveny Park. Although the event only lasted a few hours on Saturday, the club had been planning the fundraiser since the fall. According to the teacher advisor, Ann Thommen, the club held student run meetings every Tuesday night.
Ms. Thommen (Teacher Advisor): We have been having meetings every Tuesday evening um with the student led group up at the high school. So, each night we had to divvy up jobs. The student leadership was amazing and we had to figure out. And do research into how we were going to do online registration and find out how to get the high school in line with like doing a banking system. The kids were able to figure that out. We had advertising. Any issues with like coming up with just in general how the whole day would run and plotting out, using the pond as our water source.
On the morning of the event, Junior Abbie Stone gave an overview of how the event was symbolic of the water walk in Kenya.
Abbie Stone (Free the Children Member): Well at nine thirty the participants are all going to arrive, hopefully with their water containers. And we are going to go down to the pond and fill everyone’s up. And they’re going to go on a course that’s a little less than a mile long. Hopefully to simulate the water walk that the women and girls in Kenya have to do everyday.
Not only did the event raise awareness for the struggling Kenyan population, but the proceeds were put aside for the cause as well.
Jackie Trager (Free the Children Member): So the proceeds of this event will go half towards our clean water project, which hopefully next year we will be building a clean well in our adopted village in Kenya, and half towards our trip this summer, where we will be building a school.
According to Junior Liza Swindell, the group plans on doing more than building a school on their trip.
Liza Swindell (Free the Children Member): This summer we’re going to be going to a vilage in Kenya and our main task for being there will be to build an elementary school for the kids… but besides that we’re also going to be building a relationship with the community, a lasting relationship that’s hopefully going to continue over the next couple of summers, really helping them out and a bunch of different things.
For participant Sophomore Sara Wilson, a participant at the event, the relationship already exists in some way.
Sara Wilson (Water Walk Participant): I think this is a really important cause to contribute to because I think that it is something that even though we haven’t experienced it before we can somewhat relate to because we always hear about these women in africa carrying all these pounds of water and it’s so incredibly strong of them and that’s something that we’ve really never seen or done in ourselves and so by doing it, we feel like we can relate to them in a different way and really just connect to them in a different level.
After the walk came to a conclusion, Sophomore Sydney Trager reflected on the event.
Sydney Trager (Free the Children Member): I think that the event went really really well. We didn’t expect it to be this good. We had so many more people, so many people made donations. It was awesome. And for next year we have so many things we want to do. Definitely more kids related stuff. We wanna hopefully have it on a sunny day, more in the spring, a little bit later so more people can go. We are probably going to advertise more, but overall it was amazing and we are so excited about it.
After the distribution of prizes, the club wrapped up the water walk with hopes of making their fundraiser an annual event.
Abbie Stone: That’s the end of our first ever water walk. So thank you guys all so much for coming, we hope to do another one next year. And yeah, we hope to meet you all there.
