Turn on a spigot. Open a bottle of water. Brush your teeth with the water running.
For Wichitans, there’s water even in a drought.
For the people of rural Tanzania, there are no water assurances. They have streams and wells, but they are full of contaminants such as toxins, bacteria and human waste. And yet, they drink it because that is what they have.
But a Midwest-based effort called The Outreach Program is changing that with the help of volunteers like Ed Frey and organizations such as Rotary.
Frey, president of the Rotary Club of West Wichita, traveled to Tanzania in January to help install water purification systems in Singida, a region in central Tanzania.
Members of the Rotary Club of West Wichita signed a water purification system sent to Tanzania.
“My typical day started at 8 a.m. with a slow ride to a school to install a system,” Frey said.
Over the course of 15 days, Frey’s group typically installed the systems in two or three schools each day.
“It was a grueling schedule,” said Isaac McNary, vice president of international development for The Outreach Program. “Ed kept up with us.”
Why schools when potable water can be scarce anywhere in that region?
Frey said that in this area of Tanzania, more than 10,500 children are enrolled in rural schools with no electricity, books or potable drinking water.
The schools work around the lack of power and books. But contaminated water often causes illnesses such as cholera and dysentery, leading children to miss school and a chance at secondary education as they fall behind on schoolwork. The result is wasted chances at better jobs.
“These are very smart people,” Frey said.
The Outreach Program is a nonprofit organization founded 20 years by an Iowa couple, Floyd and Kathy Hammer, who’d traveled to Tanzania to help remodel a hospital. It’s based in Union, Iowa, although its WaterPoint purification systems are made in El Dorado, where McNary lives. The Outreach Program also addresses hunger, medical care and education needs. Numana, an anti-hunger organization based in El Dorado, recently became part of The Outreach Program.
Issac McNary received a heart-shaped donation for The Outreach Program.
According to The Outreach Program website, the solar-powered WaterPoint systems can be mobile or stationary and installed in a few hours to produce potable water.
The $5,000 cost of each system is paid for by groups such as Rotary of West Wichita, which has donated two systems and is raising money for a third.
“This (purified water) tastes better than Wichita water,” Frey said. He served as the guinea pig trying the water purified by the first system he helped install. “I’m a believer.”
At one school, a student called the water “sweet water” and Frey the “sweet water man.”
Frey is managing partner at Credit Review Group of Wichita but plans on taking it easier soon to spend more time with his wife, B.J., their three children and various passions — including Rotary, his church and Kansas State University.
Soon to be on the K-State Alumni Board, Frey is known around town for his purple Jeep. Never a day goes by, he said, that he doesn’t have some purple on.
“Ed brought gifts for the headmasters of the schools we installed systems in. All K-State stuff,” McNary recalled with a laugh.
The Outreach Program plans to install purification systems in 90 schools, hoping the Tanzanian government will step in and complete the job across the East African nation. But for now, McNary and volunteers like Frey take the systems to Tanzania.
“McNary is so passionate,” Frey said, “it just oozes out.”
McNary recently started the $2 Heart Club, referring to the cost of safe water for a child in Tanzania for one year. It was suggested by a friend who gave him a $2 bill folded into a heart shape as a donation.
The Outreach Program’s plan for the future, Frey said, is to eventually “get to the point where the people themselves can build (WaterPoint systems) in Tanzania.”
As for himself, he’ll keep driving his purple Jeep around and look for food pantry or other local project to get involved in.
“I would go back (to Tanzania),” Frey said. “But it opened my eyes to the needs in our own backyard.”
Contact Beth Bower at beth@goodlifeguy.com.
To donate or find more information about The Outreach Program,visit outreachprogram.com.
