Students in Lake Forest help bring water to the world

While it might be easy to take abundant water for granted in Lake County, students at Woodlands Academy of the Sacred Heart raised $593 for the United Nations’ World Water Day March 22.

The Common Ground club of the Lake Forest school held activities and a fundraiser to support The Water Project, Inc. Students carried buckets filled with 40 pounds to replicate just some of the weight, plus more, that children elsewhere carry numerous times each day. The buckets could not be dropped as they represented water, which would have been spilled.

The school community was divided into four teams: Somalia, Uzbekistan, Egypt and Venezuela. Everyone who so chose donated funds into a milk jug for each country. The team representing Egypt collected the most money, $189 and also had the greatest number of participants, 23. The team earned a jeans day at school. The other teams came in as follows: Venezuela, $182; Uzbekistan, $167 and Somalia, $55. All funds were sent to The Water Project.

The Water Project works to bring relief to communities around the world that suffer needlessly from a lack of access to clean water and proper sanitation. For information, visit thewaterproject.org.