Students in the business communications class at the Orangeville Humber College are having a walka thon this Sunday, April 18 to raise money for the charity: water foundation, a not-for-profit organization that brings clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations.

According to a charity: water 2008 audit report, they have provided over 732, 504 people with clean, safe drinking water in 14 countries since the charity started in 2006. Freshwater wells, spring protections, rainwater harvesting schemes, biosand filters and other water solutions have been used to achieve this.

“We fell in love with the charity once we got to know more about it,” said Nicole Chicoine, business management student at Humber College, and cocreator of the Humber walk-a-thon.

“We chose the walk-athon to sort of recognize the fact that people walk for hours and hours everyday to collect dirty water.”

The charity says 100% of public donations go directly to fund sustainable water solutions.

By providing wells for communities to use it enables them to grow small gardens near their homes, giving them a secure food source and creating more self-sufficient households. It cuts down on the amount of time spent walking to get water everyday.

According to charity: water, Africa suffers an economic loss of $28 billion every year due to lack of safe water. More people die from lack of basic sanitation and clean water than from violence per year.

The charity not only provides safe water but also educates people in the surrounding area basic sanitation and how to keep the wells running properly.

“Our goal is $2,500 and so far, not counting online donations, we’ve collected over $1,000 on our own,” said RoseMary Pucci, business management student at Humber College.

The cost of sponsoring one well to provide for 250-plus people is $5,000.

“Because our group was small we know we couldn’t go too big,” said Ms. Chicoine.

“We know that $5,000 could give a community a well, so we thought if we could at least attain half of that we felt that that would still be great. “

The business communications class has 25 students who have been doing bottle drives, going door to door for donations as well as recruiting family and friends to help their cause.

“So far we’ve got about 30 to 40 walkers that have committed so far, but that’s not counting family and friends,” said Ms. Pucci. “We’re recruiting anyone who would like to come, even pets.”

This is the first year the business communications class has had the walk-athon.

“We’re going to try to keep it annual, even though it won’t be the students of this particular class (next year),” said Ms. Pucci. “We have students form the police foundation program. And they decided to run it rather than walk it.”

The walk-a-thon will start at 12 noon at the Orangeville Humber Campus at the Alder Recreation Center. It is a five-kilometre walk that goes around Montgomery Village and ends back at the Alder Recreation Centre. Everyone who would like to participate is welcome and any donations will go directly to charity: water.

To donate directly to the walk-a-thon go to www. mycharitywater.org/ orangevillewalkforwater.

More about charity: water can be found at www.charitywater.org.