Some clean water for Puerto Rico
Nov. 1st, 2017 02:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blimixI know someone who is planning to visit his home in Puerto Rico in January, and I intend to send a bunch of Sawyer portable water filters with him. (Yes, I've already cleared this idea with him.) I would like your help with four things: Money for the filters, ideas, spreading the word, and money for the filters.
That's the short version.
The Sawyer filters are really simple: They fit in your fist, you drink through them, and they filter your water. They come with a straw and a bag for carrying water, either of which can be attached to the bottom of the filter. (By the way, nobody at Sawyer is paying me or otherwise influencing me to say any of this.) When I was assembling my bug out bags, a couple of camping/survival enthusiasts working at the camping and hunting store talked my ear off. They told me (among many other things) that the common portable water filter was LifeStraw, but recommended the (then) new Sawyer product because it had a finer filter (which caught more bacteria), and lasted practically forever (100,000 gallons instead of 1,000 gallons, because you can clean the filter by forcing water through it backward until it runs clear). In fact, I later moved my Sawyer filter from the bug out bag to the belt pouch in my Bag of Useful Stuff, and subsequently had occasion to use it on a hike that got longer than I had planned for. Hooray for being prepared!
When I read about the LifeStraw Safe Water Fund raising money from consumers to send LifeStraw Go filters to Puerto Rico, I thought, "That's wonderful!" and "I'd rather send Sawyer filters".
This opportunity presented itself in the form of a kind, helpful, humble, badass professor from Puerto Rico, under and alongside whom I have had the honor of training in martial arts. He was staying up here when hurricane Maria hit, and plans to head down to P.R. in January to check up on his loved ones and to evaluate the damage to his home. I asked him whether he would be willing to take an extra suitcase full of water filters for people who need them, and he was very pleased. He also mentioned that only five of thirty packages that he had sent with tracking had been marked "delivered". This reinforced my desire to have someone personally bring the filters down, rather than ship them. (I don't mean to discredit shippers; I'm sure they're doing all they can despite huge obstacles and broken infrastructure. For all I know, some of those missing deliveries might have been successful, but the records never made it out.)
I have some thoughts on what I need to look into, and your input (both on those things and suggesting others) is appreciated:
This isn't the post I want you all to share (that would be the crowdfunding campaign), but I certainly won't mind if you share this. I don't know how organized the whole thing will get, but if some people who know me just want to contribute right now, you're welcome to. I'd love for this to get big enough to require logistics for money managing and multiple suitcases, but it might also come down to nothing more than collecting a bit of cash and sending a backpack full of filters. Whatever happens, we'll make sure to do something rather than nothing.
That's the short version.
The Sawyer filters are really simple: They fit in your fist, you drink through them, and they filter your water. They come with a straw and a bag for carrying water, either of which can be attached to the bottom of the filter. (By the way, nobody at Sawyer is paying me or otherwise influencing me to say any of this.) When I was assembling my bug out bags, a couple of camping/survival enthusiasts working at the camping and hunting store talked my ear off. They told me (among many other things) that the common portable water filter was LifeStraw, but recommended the (then) new Sawyer product because it had a finer filter (which caught more bacteria), and lasted practically forever (100,000 gallons instead of 1,000 gallons, because you can clean the filter by forcing water through it backward until it runs clear). In fact, I later moved my Sawyer filter from the bug out bag to the belt pouch in my Bag of Useful Stuff, and subsequently had occasion to use it on a hike that got longer than I had planned for. Hooray for being prepared!
When I read about the LifeStraw Safe Water Fund raising money from consumers to send LifeStraw Go filters to Puerto Rico, I thought, "That's wonderful!" and "I'd rather send Sawyer filters".
This opportunity presented itself in the form of a kind, helpful, humble, badass professor from Puerto Rico, under and alongside whom I have had the honor of training in martial arts. He was staying up here when hurricane Maria hit, and plans to head down to P.R. in January to check up on his loved ones and to evaluate the damage to his home. I asked him whether he would be willing to take an extra suitcase full of water filters for people who need them, and he was very pleased. He also mentioned that only five of thirty packages that he had sent with tracking had been marked "delivered". This reinforced my desire to have someone personally bring the filters down, rather than ship them. (I don't mean to discredit shippers; I'm sure they're doing all they can despite huge obstacles and broken infrastructure. For all I know, some of those missing deliveries might have been successful, but the records never made it out.)
I have some thoughts on what I need to look into, and your input (both on those things and suggesting others) is appreciated:
- Contact Sawyer to see if I can get some sort of bulk deal or wholesale price. Good publicity and/or saving lives might be a motivator. I'm not on Twitter, but would a public invitation on Twitter be reasonable? Or try that only if a private email fails? Or not at all?
- Make sure to get directions for use in Spanish. (I need to find my copy, and see whether it already includes Spanish by default.)
- Look for a big, light suitcase, probably at a local thrift store.
- How shall I collect funds? I could give out my PayPal address, make a new one just for this purpose, and/or start an IndieGoGo (or other crowdfunding) campaign. PayPal has a long history of freezing charity funds, so that's risky. (In fact, coming up with any excuse to freeze outgoing funds seems to be part of their business model. So I'm extra wary of entrusting them with this.)
- Some small fraction of the funds might have to be reserved for incidental expenses (extra luggage fee, or paying to finish getting the filters where they need to go, or really anything unexpected). I could, instead, reimburse any extra expenses out of my own pocket.
- I intend to leave the means of distribution, once in P.R., up to my esteemed acquaintance. He can give them out, or use his familiarity with the area and the organizations on the ground to select someone to get the filters to those in need. I trust him to use his best judgment.
- I've probably already thought of several other things by now, but they're not coming to me, it's getting late, and I need to go to bed.
- Edit: Any funds not used at the end (either less than the cost of another filter, or more than we can use) can and will go toward others who are doing similar work in Puerto Rico.
This isn't the post I want you all to share (that would be the crowdfunding campaign), but I certainly won't mind if you share this. I don't know how organized the whole thing will get, but if some people who know me just want to contribute right now, you're welcome to. I'd love for this to get big enough to require logistics for money managing and multiple suitcases, but it might also come down to nothing more than collecting a bit of cash and sending a backpack full of filters. Whatever happens, we'll make sure to do something rather than nothing.
