Last week, Jeremy and I got the privilege of getting to know Scott Harrison from Charity Water. Scott spoke at our friend Dale Partridge’s Start Up Camp Conference in Bend, Oregon.

I was absolutely blown away by both his story, and his mission.

“In 2004, I left the streets of New York City for the shores of West Africa. I’d made my living for years in the big Apple promoting top nightclubs and fashion events, for the most part living selfishly and arrogantly. Desperately unhappy, I needed to change. Faced with spiritual bankruptcy, I wanted desperately to revive a lost Christian faith with action and asked the question: What would the opposite of my life look like?” – Scott Harrison, Founder and CEO of Charity Water

In an effort to seek the opposite of his current lifestyle, Scott stumbled across Mercy Ships, a humanitarian organization which offered free medical care in the world’s poorest nations.  He applied for an 8-month photojournalist position, capturing images of people with suffocating tumors, cleft lips, and faces eaten by bacteria from water-borne diseases.  He witnessed doctors and surgeons volunteering their time to perform 20-minute procedures that would change these men, women and children’s lives forever. And yet, he watched thousands of people get turned away at the end of the day. Many of them who had walked for days to seek medical care. Scott’s compassion for these people initiated an unrelenting determination and faithfulness to get to the root of the problem – WATER.

663 million people in the world live without clean water. 

Diseases from unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war.

Scott and the charity: water team are passionate about solving the world’s water crisis in our lifetime.  And over the past 10 years, they have proven that it IS possible!

So how are they doing it?!

THEY GIVE 100% OF ALL PUBLIC DONATIONS TO FUND WATER PROJECTS!!!

And they are proving where every dollar goes, with photos and GPS coordinates.

Watch this video below to learn more about charity: water’s model, and the impact they are having on millions! So far, 6,300,000 people, in 24 countries, have access to clean water because of the 20,056 water projects that have been funded by donations around the world!

So what does all this have to do with my birthday?

Scott came up with the brilliant idea to get people involved in solving the water crisis – giving up their birthdays! Sounds so simple, and it is! So far, 81,533 people have donated their birthday to help change and save lives! 100% of the money donated from birthday campaigns goes directly to build water projects, all overhead costs are covered by a small group of donors.

So I’ve decided to give up my 25th birthday. I don’t need another gift card, pair of shoes, or shade of lipstick. Truly… I don’t. But people DO NEED clean drinking water. And I am hoping my humble efforts will at least make a dent of a difference.

My goal is to raise $5,000 for clean water – which will give about 250 people clean water!

That’s 250 lives changed or saved because of my 25th birthday! 

I am asking you to donate $25 dollars for my 25th birthday!!!

Every single penny – that is one-hundred percent – of your donations will go straight to fund water projects!How freakin’ cool is that!? Would you be willing to give up a few lattes, that dress you’ve been eying online, or a couple six packs in order for people around the world to have access something that we can so freely access and so often take for granted!?

My birthday is JULY 19th | Click >>HERE<< to join me in raising $5,000 for charity: water! I’ve already given $250 to get it started, and Scott Harrison himself donated $126 to my campaign! 

It takes less than 30 seconds to donate!!!! That’s 30 seconds, and you could change a life forever!

Is your birthday coming up?? Or do you have a passion to help solve the world’s water crisis in your lifetime?! You can join me in donating your birthday too!!! Sign up to give up your birthday here>> https://my.charitywater.org/birthdays

“The dictionary defines charity as simply the act of giving voluntarily to those in need. It’s taken from the word “caritas,” or simply, love. In Colossians 3, the Bible instructs readers to “put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.

Although I’m still not sure what that means, I love the idea. To wear charity.” – Scott Harrison

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