Ideas

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Ideas for youth and youth groups
All gifts for ELCA World Hunger’s Walk for Water will be matched – 100 percent – until we reach a grand total of $1 million! Here are some fun ideas to help your youth group raise funds and awareness.

5K for $5K
The average woman in Sub-Saharan Africa walks a little more than three miles each day to fetch water for her family – the same distance as a 5K. Organize a run, walk, or ride event in your community to raise funds. You can even try a “5K for $5K” and set a goal at $5,000.

Sponsor My Walk
At the ELCA Youth Gathering in Detroit, youth will have the opportunity to experience the reality of walking for up to three miles with heavy water containers. Each lap around the track is one-tenth of a mile. Set a goal: How many steps, laps or miles will you try to reach? Invite family, friends and members of the congregation to sponsor individual youth or your team in advance of your trip to Detroit. Create a personal fundraising page.

Noisy Offering
Fill jerry cans or empty water bottles with change for two, three or four consecutive Sundays. Pass the containers at youth group, confirmation, congregation council and other meetings.

Set a Goal
Working with global companion churches and trusted partners around the world, ELCA World Hunger spends over $1 million per year on water-related projects. Your gifts make this work possible. Below are some examples of how your gifts can make a difference. Pick a project or two to inspire your goal-setting.

• $10 provides clinic visit for a child suffering from water-borne illness
• $150 develops 100 feet of an irrigation canal
• $1000 could train a team of trainers to educate their community about water, sanitation and hygiene 
• $2,500-15,000  constructs a water source for a community (from harnessing a local spring to drilling a deep borehole)

Water Pledge
Challenge the congregation to drink only tap water for a week or month. Ask them to donate the money they would normally have spent on bottled water, coffee, soft drinks and other beverages.

Traveling Toilet
More people have mobile phones than toilets. Raise awareness for water and sanitation issues by creating a “traveling toilet.” Paint and decorate an old toilet, and place it around town – at members’ homes and local businesses, for example, and leave it there until a donation is made. Your group can also sell “insurance” and leave people off the hit list for an early donation.

World Water Day
World Water Day is Sunday, March 22. Organize a special worship service and offering to benefit the Walk for Water. A life is claimed from water-related illness every 20 seconds. Consider ringing a bell each 20 seconds to remember those lives that are lost.