1.       Conserve water in any way you can: The less water we use on a day to day basis, the less water we are draining from our local water sources.  Take shorter showers, turn off the tap while brushing your teeth, wait to use the dishwasher until you have a full load – anything that avoids potentially wasteful water usage.

A watershed is an area of land that collects water or snow runoff into a body of water like a river, lake, or stream.  Watersheds provide the clean water that we drink, use to take a shower, wash our dishes and clothes with, and all of the other uses we have for water every day.  So if watersheds are so important, who protects them?

Today, we are thrilled to announce that Project Waterfall has raised £519,184!

Project Waterfall is a charity that aims to bring clean water to coffee growing communities all over the world.  You might ask, why coffee growing communities?  One explanation is that Project Waterfall gets much of its support from members of the coffee industry.  Through events like UK Coffee Week, London Coffee Festival, New York Coffee Festival, and Amsterdam Coffee Festival, Project Waterfall brings members of the coffee industry together around a common philanthropic cause. 

The benefits of going to school to get an education are no secret.  Not only does it increase the chances of personal success, but levels of education within a population are also linked to a country’s success in development.  Countries with high education levels have decreased maternal mortality and child marriage rates, greater social equality between ethnic groups and between men and women, and better overall health of the population, all of which lead to stronger economies.

Luck is an interesting concept.  We describe luck as a force that somehow shapes the outcome of events in our lives, but at the end of the day, none of us know what luck really is.  This doesn’t stop us from giving luck all the credit for monumental things that happen to us, though.  We might say, “It was luck that I won the lottery” or “how lucky that my husband and I met on a blind date so many years ago.”  But what if luck extended past these fateful circumstances and became intrinsically linked with our very survival.

Project Waterfall would like to introduce Zofia Wootliff.  Zofia started interning with us this summer, and has since become an invaluable member of our team.  She has worked to strengthen our community relations in London, while also expanding our social media presence by reaching out to our friends in the coffee industry.  We look forward to seeing how she spreads the mission of Project Waterfall at her high school this Autumn.

This week we are so excited to share the story of one of our dedicated interns, Zofia.  Zofia started working for The Allegra Foundation this summer and has done amazing work helping us expand our social media platform.  More importantly though, Zofia is currently on the ground of one of our projects in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where she is visiting the Kibebe Tsehay orphanage.