I'm thrilled to say that A Drink for Tomorrow has grown significantly from our first to our second year. Each fundraiser has been more successful than the last. We've received support from businesses such as Cork Restaurant, Wachovia Bank, Beneficial Bank and Triangle Tube. In our first year, we funded one project, and in our second year, we funded five--projects in Haiti, Botswana, Lesotho, and Sierra Leone, and Guatemala. Our team of volunteers is growing rapidly, as are the number and type of projects we're planning for the remainder of 2011.
We are planning to launch a large-scale campaign in conjunction with the Philadelphia beer industry, which will be called Raise a Drink for Tomorrow. In addition, Triangle Tube, which funded our well in Botswana, is interested in partnering with us again for an even bigger water project. We are honored to be a member of the Philadelphia Global Water Initiative, a group of interested organizations and individuals committed to helping to meet the UN Millennium Development Goals for water/sanitation throughout the world. We have also developed a partnership with Fairmount Waterworks to raise funds for a well in Nicaragua, which included an educational event with Philadelphia area middle and high school students. In addition, we are looking forward to an upcoming promotion with Alma de Cuba, a Cuban restaurant that is part of the Steven Starr restaurant group, to raise funds for a well in Central America. Furthermore, WineMasters, an association of 37 wine stores in four states will be donating a percentage of proceeds on select wines for a month from World Water Day through Earth Day (March 22nd-April 22 2011).
ADFT is also building a bigger presence on college campuses to get more young people involved. We have held/will hold speaking engagements and fundraisers at colleges such as Rosemont College, Chestnut Hill College, Rowan University, Widener University, University of North Carolina, University of Pennsylvania, and Franklin and Marshall College. We are partnering with University of Pennsylvania's student sustainability group to raise funds for a well, and UNC is also the site of ADFT's first official college chapter.
In February 2011, I made my first visit to the site of a completed ADFT-funded project - Little Angels Orphanage in Lesotho, Africa. I spent time with the children and saw them benefiting from the project as they washed their hands, brushed their teeth, and drank and ate using the clean, safe water. The children had previously been forced to drink from an open, contaminated source. I also spent time on the ground meeting with NGOs, identifying sites in need of clean water, and learning about the problem firsthand.
I was further invigorated by the momentum ADFT experienced during its second year, and so I transitioned from a full-time position to part-time position in October 2010, in order to have more business hours to dedicate even more of myself to cultivating the organization.
We are looking forward to continued success in our third year!
