Editor’s Note: This story is part of our series “Helping Hands”, which aims to spotlight Johnson Countians doing good in the background of their community. If you have an idea for someone to spotlight in a future “Helping Hands” story, email us at stories@johnsoncountypost.com.
For Emeline Wilinski and Lucy Even, what started as a school research project has morphed into something more.
This past spring, the two (then) seventh grade students at Indian Hills Middle School worked together on a research project focused on water scarcity around the world.
Through the project, the two friends said they quickly realized how widespread water scarcity really was, and how many communities around the world don’t have access. So they set out to do something about it.
Emeline and Lucy funneled those efforts into launching a fundraiser to help facilitate the building of a new well in Africa.
The duo wants to raise $8,000
Emeline and Lucy’s “Kids for Water” proceeds will go toward Water Wells for Africa, an organization that allows people to create their own fundraisers to raise money for wells in Africa.
The organization’s Wishing Well Campaign uses proceeds from each fundraiser to build wells in rural parts of the African continent — a process that usually costs roughly $9,000, according to the website. Each fundraiser represents funding for an individual well in a different village, and Water Wells for Africa determines the location of each well.
“(People there) have to walk miles and miles to water, and they might die from drinking that water anyways,” Lucy said. “By helping them, you’re saving a whole village.”
The school stepped in to help
After Emeline and Lucy launched their fundraiser, Indian Hills Middle School, located in the Shawnee Mission School District, put out a call to action by advertising it on Instagram and via the school’s newsletter.
Kim Hill, Emeline and Lucy’s teacher at Indian Hills this past semester, said the fundraising project that the girls took on stemmed from a quarterly research project called “directed deeper learning.”
Through that project, students research a topic of their choice and present their findings to their classmates. Oftentimes, Hill said those types of projects end up taking on a service element, where students decide to become more deeply involved with the topic they’re researching.
The perk of this is, in part, what it does for the communities the students aim to help. But Hill said it also helps students learn how to communicate with others and advocate for causes they believe in.
“It’s really cool to see them run with something that they’re interested in and engaged in,” Hill said. “(Emeline and Lucy) gave a fantastic presentation to their peers just about water scarcity and clean water and how we are fortunate. I think it did open their eyes to the fact that not everybody is like us.”
The fundraiser is still accepting donations
Though Emeline and Lucy had hoped to meet their fundraising goal by the end of this past semester, their fundraiser is still live and ongoing.
Donations can be made online on the fundraiser’s page, or via the fundraiser’s QR code (see below).
By the end of the spring semester, the fundraiser had brought in roughly $500. Though the semester has ended, Emeline and Lucy plan to keep the fundraiser going indefinitely.
Throughout the project, their mission to help communities who face water scarcity has become increasingly important to Emeline and Lucy. If they can find a way to help, they said, they’ll try their hardest.
“In our world, we’re only as strong as our weakest part,” Emeline said. “(Projects like this) can save a life or really change someone’s life so much for the better.”
More Helping Hands: These volunteers work to build and maintain JoCo’s trails, so others can hike and bike with ease
