Donate to Passports with Purpose; help Water.org build wells in Haiti
The following is a guest post from Mara Gorman who blogs at The Mother of all Trips. At this time of year the song White Christmas is ubiquitous from supermarket to mall to car radio. The other day I found myself thinking about the plot of the similarly titled movie that this classic song comes from. Without going into too much detail, I’ll just say that a central tenant of the storyline is the lack of water, in the form of snow, that is going to put a Vermont inn run out of business.
In the movie, of course, there’s a happy ending – the snow falls at the critical moment, Bing Crosby sings, and the inn is saved. But unfortunately, in real life, things don’t work out so neatly.
One of the most water-poor nations in the Western hemisphere is Haiti. The situation there, already bad after the 2010 earthquake, has deteriorated in the wake of Hurricane Sandy earlier this fall. Four million people there do not have access to safe water (that’s half the population) and 1 in 5 people don’t have sanitation. A cholera epidemic has been rampant since the 2010 earthquake.
But there is hope. Organizations like Water.org are working to help the people of Haiti rebuild and get permanent access to safe drinking water. And (cue Bing please) you can help!
In 2012 the travel bloggers’ fundraiser Passports with Purpose is raising $100,000 for Water.org to build five wells in Haiti. These wells will help about 1600 people in two communities to stay safe and healthy. It will also offer them precious time that they can use to work and care for their homes and families and attend school.
What’s really wonderful about this fundraiser is that although it’s working for a serious cause, the premise actually couldn’t be more festive. For every $10 that you give, you can enter to win a fabulous prize of your choosing. There are over 100 prizes to pick from, and some of them are quite spectacular like:
- A 3-night stay at any of Kimpton Hotels’ over 100 properties across the United States, along with a gift certificate for two at any Kimpton restaurant;
- Two nights accommodation at the Grand Hyatt Kauai Resort & Spa on the island of Kauai in Hawaii;
- A Kindle Paperwhite reader; and
- A week in a villa in St. Remy de Provence, with meals in top restaurants, private guided tours, massages and much more.
See a full list of prizes on the Passports with Purpose Pinterest prize board, or go straight to the donation page. And if you’re seeking a gift for that impossible-to-buy-for person, chances to win make great presents.
Passports with Purpose runs now through December 11, 2012. Please donate today, and the next time you hear that old, familiar song you can smile in your heart knowing you’ve helped provide Haiti with its own kind of “White Christmas.”
Learn more about the water crisis in Haiti and what Water.org is doing to help.
Mara Gorman is a freelance writer who blogs about traveling with her husband and two school-age sons at The Mother of all Trips. She lives in Delaware.