Stephen's 32nd Birthday

Charity: Water opened my eyes to the idea of giving back to the world. And opened my eyes to the fact that giving back can be as simple as handing someone a glass of clean water.

In January of 2007, I spent a weekend in Park City Utah at The Sundance Film Festival, surrounded by opulence and indulgent drinking. At the end of my trip out there, I was wandering the streets with my friends from LA, soaking it all in before I left. My friend Seth, his girlfriend (at the time) Elisa, and I happened upon a festival "booth" (basically a storefront) asking people to purchase a $20 bottle of water. I had no idea what it was, and definitely wasn't about to give up my hard earned money for something I personally didn't need.

Until I read about the project:

Charity: water is a non-profit organization bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. 100% of public donations directly fund water projects. That's right, projects for...wait for it...Water.

Unbeknownst to me and my generally sheltered life as an American, 1,000,000,000 people (yes, that's billion) on the planet don't have access to clean drinking water. That's 1 in 6 of us. So, with that, imagine the people sitting around you as the planet. That means that YOU, in comparison to six people sitting near you, will NOT be able to drink clean water. And I don't mean, the single glass of water in front of you. I mean, WATER. The single most important nourishing element on the face of this earth.

Charity: Water started a movement, in my eyes - to setup infrastructure for those that are too far from supplies to simply drink clean water. CLEAN. WATER. It's an amazing program and I want to help.

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My goal is to raise $5000 by November 27th of this year. That's One Goal for 250 people. One Goal for 50 Families. And One Goal for ONE whole Community of living, breathing, individuals who are striving each and every day, while you and I play on Facebook, just to get through.

So, HELP ME give back. On September 11th, I'm turning 32. And instead of giving ME a present, I'm asking FOR YOU to give $32 to My Online Campaign. Every penny of the money raised will go directly to fund freshwater wells in developing nations. Even better, every dollar is "proved" when the projects are complete, and photos and GPS coordinates are posted using Google Earth.

Because I know if I can spare $32, there's a ton of other living, breathing Americans out there who can give that too.