In the biggest service-learning project of the year, Summit Country Day School students took a symbolic walk Wednesday to raise awareness of a global water crisis in developing and impoverished countries.
The annual Hands Across the Water event is now in its 15th year. The Summit community has raised more than $10,000 in this year's campaign as fund-raising continues. Since its inception, the school has raised nearly $187,000 to support the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur (SNDdeN) Clean Water for Life Project.
Hands Across the Water has three components – education, fund-raising and community awareness – which involve all students and teachers on campus and require support from the parent community.
In the weeks leading up to the event, students learn about the lack of clean water that affects one out of 10 people on the planet, causing disease and death. Summit students learn about the water crisis in the classroom through materials and projects in multiple subjects such as language arts, math, science, social studies and religion. A group of students in the Middle School turned their Hands Across the Water experience into a capstone project, a cross-curricular, action-research based experience which focuses on one of the domains of the schools Leaders of Character program.
Students also raised funds for Clean Water for Life Project which provides water purification packets, drills boreholes for well water and provides supplies necessary for piping and equipment for electricity in the communities in Africa, South and Central America that the sisters serve. The fund-raising was intended to be personal. In the Lower School, for example, students were asked to do 10 chores over 10 days and collect 10 cents for each chore. 10 cents is the cost of one PUR water purification packet which can clean two-and-a-half gallons of contaminated water.
The third component Hands Across the Water is the walk which simulates a trek that children in developing countries must take to carry clean water back to their homes and villages. On campus and in the neighborhood surrounding the school, students from toddler age through the senior class walk carrying water jugs or bottles. Sister Mary Ann Barnhorn, SNDdeN, led an all-school prayer before the walk began and walked with the Montessori School.
"Pope Francis has urged us all to action in providing clean water to those who have none," says Sister Mary Ann. "We take for granted that it just requires the turn of a tap to quench our thirst. However, when it comes to children who are sick all day and all night because of dirty water, our action is indeed essential."
At the end of the walk, the jugs of water are donated to Matthew 25: Ministries.
The Summit was founded by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in 1890. While the school is now independent, it maintains its affiliation with SNDdeN. The Summit serves students ages 18 months to grade 12 in a coeducational environment. The Summit offers a holistic approach to education that embraces academic, spiritual, physical, social and artistic development.
Even though the walk is over, the Sisters continue to collect funds throughout the year for the Water for Life Project. Learn more about the project and donate here.