World Water Day {Milwaukee Area Photographers Celebrate!}

What causes this photographer to actually update her blog? Well, this: one of the most dire yet solvable issues in the world. And, as an added bonus, I'll introduce you to a photographer I hope to meet and travel with someday. I've got a thing for tents in third world countries, and I'm hoping to one day meet up with her and learn from one of the best.}

Ladies and Gentlemen: Where 10% of my earnings from Jan-March 2011 are going, and photography by Esther Havens...

Here is my story-
I remember the first time I heard about it- the thing I, prior to that moment, knew nothing about.

I was barely a few paragraphs in when I knew I was reading something different, something life-changing...and then I realized if it was truly going to be life-changing, I was going to have to let it.

The words I was reading- the words that were peeling my very eyeballs back from my soul, were words of mothers who would look deep into their children's eyes and wonder whether to allow their children to continue to be dehydrated, or hikes miles upon miles for water, only to get home 6-8 hours later with water that may give their children worms or disease that will eventually kill them. Dehydrate their children for lack of water, or hike to feed them water that is dirty, diseased, full of death...prolonged death?

I remember thinking to myself--these are not choices!

But there was more.

?!!??!

This water is carried by mothers and their children---children who would be in school if not for fetching water, children who are giving up education to fetch this water, in a country where without an education, there is hardly any future beyond poverty ahead of them.

If, they had any life ahead of them at all.

Needless to say, I had very little left of myself by the time I finished those paragraphs, and I knew I had a decision to make:

Disregard what I had just learned, or change my life and tear after it?

Currently: 4,000 children die each day from lack of access to clean water. As a children's photographer, I've looked deep into a lot of eyes.

{I've found reason to tear after it.}

We've done a number of things over the past 5 years in our family since we learned of the dire circumstance of our fellow humans, but we're just beginning and trying to figure it out as we go---

We've tried to teach our kids about 1/6 of the world's need for clean water, traded out birthday party favors for donations to water charities, established business principles that sustain our family and families around the world at the same time, collected water on the kitchen counter when we run the faucet but there is waste, and carefully used that waste to challenge ourselves on what's it's like to live in excess of something that is in such dire need around the world, stocked my diaper bag full of this book, where for me, it had all begun...

The Water Chapter.

Each of us blogging today is hoping to get 10 donations of $20--I'll start, so we're now at 19: here is where you can go {CLICK} for your donation. It's safe & reputable- oh, and the video is super-cute. Check it our while you're there.

Hey-hey, let's go!

Let's set these people free!