A couple of years ago, Marcy Norton heard Gil Garcetti speak about the water crisis and the work that Wells Bring Hope is doing to combat it. When her next birthday rolled around, Marcy, along with her mother Rita, decided to start a Water Circle with the goal of raising enough money to fund a well. A little over a year later, she reached her goal! In celebration of her success, she sent the following email out to her friends and family:

Dear wonderful and generous friends and relatives,

I’m so excited to be sending this e-mail to each of you who is receiving it because I have fabulous news, and each of you helped to make it possible!!!

You may recall that when I was experiencing my unbelievable birthday in March of 2012, I wrote to you and said that rather than having another expensive party to celebrate the event, Mom and I were hoping to do something a bit more meaningful.

We’d recently learned of a wonderful charity called Wells Bring Hope which provides deep water wells to bring clean water to poor villages in Niger, West Africa. A well costs $5,600 and we asked you to be generous. Each of you was wonderful enough to contribute to my well (which I now refer to as “our well” since you made it possible along with us!).

When my Mom was very ill last year, I sent you all a solicitation from Wells Bring Hope asking you to contribute to honor someone on Mother’s Day. I asked that you help us raise the final $470 to reach our goal of drilling the first well as a way of sending her “get well” wishes. Many of you again responded generously, and we made it well past our goal — hooray!!! And thank you!!!

The big news is that our first well was actually completed and is serving approximately 2,000 people living in the village of Darey, Niger (the poorest country on earth)!!!

I recently received a report about the village, which includes a photograph of some of the villagers of Darey celebrating around OUR ACTUAL WELL, for you to see what we’ve all accomplished together! It’s one thing to write a check to good, helping organizations and to know that your money is going to a “good cause”; it’s quite another to know what your money was actually used for and to see the specific place and people who are being helped.

I hope this is as meaningful to you as it is for us! What an amazing thought — a whole village’s life has been changed forever because of your help and our combined generosity!!! With their time freed up, women are working and earning money and they feel empowered; girls are going to school; people are healthier; babies aren’t dying!!! And we all made it happen!!! We can’t thank you enough for making this dream come true! It truly is an example of the Hebrew/Jewish idea of “tikkun olam” (“healing/repairing the world”).

I really was only planning to write this to share the good news of the completion of our first well and to thank you so very, very much once again for your help in making this happen; I was NOT planning to hit you up for more!!! However, if you’re as inspired as we are by the realization of what we’ve all accomplished, and if you’d like to make an additional donation toward the next well, I’m sending you the link to contribute to the “Water Circle” that Mom and I set up for our specific fundraising campaign. Please consider making another generous donation (and sharing this link with your own generous friends and relatives) at my Water Circle page.

THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!!

With Love,

Marcy and Rita

Save

Save