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blimixWe did it! Over a hundred water filters have been delivered to Puerto Ricans in need. I am told, "Everyone was quite effusive in their appreciation."
My deep gratitude goes to:
Even though my project is done, it's not too late to help more Puerto Ricans get access to clean water! You can still donate to these folks installing larger water filters for villages.
Now I'll ramble about the whole endeavor. Well, not about how it started, since I already covered that here. (tl;dr: Louis (whose awesomeness I cannot overstate) was due to visit his home in Puerto Rico, so I proposed to give him a suitcase full of tiny water filters to bring with him.)
This was another of those "I've never done anything like this and have no idea what I'm doing" projects, that often turn out surprisingly well.
I wrote to Sawyer, and their customer service representative told me that Sawyer had already donated ten thousand filters to relief efforts following Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria. Further, they now produce versions of two of their filters in cheaper packaging (clear plastic bags instead of hard clamshells), and sell those at cost for further relief efforts (not for retail). This meant I could order the Mini filters for $9 each instead of $25-$30 each. Also, the bags would take up less space than the clamshells, making this the superior product for transporting in large numbers.
I had no idea how many filters I'd wind up raising money for, nor how many to aim for, nor how big a backpack or suitcase we would need. So I asked for the dimensions of the filter bags, measured the dimensions of my biggest piece of oversized luggage, and divided the latter volume by the former volume. I knew perfectly well that this was absurd, because the bags weren't rectangular solids, but it was all the information I had to work with. And if we wound up with more filters than we knew what to do with, well, that would be a good sort of problem to have. We'd figure something out, I knew.
I had come up with a figure of 91 filters, so I set their cost as the goal of my first ever GoFundMe campaign. (I neglected to add GoFundMe's fees into the amount I would need, which didn't matter because we eventually exceeded the goal by enough to cover the fees.)
Meanwhile, Louis found out that Yolanda's cousin was already doing relief work in Puerto Rico, and could connect him with people who would bring the filters where they needed to go.
I think it was Karen who got me wondering whether Spanish language instructions were needed. Wikipedia informed me that most Puerto Ricans were not fluent in English. Sawyer didn't have Spanish instructions for the Mini filters, though they sent me a PDF of their Spanish instructions for a different filter, in case it helped. I carefully photographed the instructions, which was complicated by glare off of the plastic bladder they were printed on. (It curved enough that I couldn't get an angle that captured the whole thing without reflecting the flash.) I posted the photos (with the PDF for assistance) to the /r/translate subreddit, to no avail. But then I expressed my concern to Louis, and he assured me that the relief workers would be bilingual, and could explain as needed.
Sawyer had informed me that shipping to my zip code would take four days. I had planned to end the GoFundMe campaign and order the filters with a few days to spare, so that I could see how much space the filters took up, and (if necessary) buy an appropriately sized backpack or suitcase for them before handing them off. I knew that Louis was due to leave for Puerto Rico in early January. I asked him exactly when this would be. It turned out that he was leaving the state to be with relatives for the holidays, then heading straight to P.R. from there. Whoops! My bad: I should have asked much sooner for his travel details. This didn't leave much time at all for the fundraising campaign.
I made a new plan: It looked like the campaign might eventually meet its goal, so I preemptively ordered one hundred filters, six days before our last convenient chance to make the hand-off. (We live nowhere near each other, but share a martial arts class.) I chose one hundred because I guessed that I could cram that many into the oversized luggage, and it was probably roughly the most that the campaign would raise funds for. I would cover the cost if the campaign was short (I had planned to buy some anyway, in addition to paying for shipping), and if we got enough to buy more filters than that, I could place a small, supplemental order addressed to Louis' son's house.
After I placed the order, day four came and went, with no filters showing up. So did day five. On the day of our last class before he left, I asked for a tracking number, and found that delivery was expected on day seven. I realized that I had been an utter idiot: Four days was a typical delivery time, any time of year other than the week before Christmas. I was worried that this was about to get extremely inconvenient (and possibly more expensive, if I had to reship the filters after him). But I was also relieved that the tracking hadn't claimed, "Delivered on day 4" [and presumably stolen off of my doorstep]. In class, he told me that he and his wife were coming back to town the next day, so if I got the package in time, I could meet him. But they were leaving the state early in the morning after that.
I had some nail-biting hours the next day. I put a sign on the door asking the delivery driver to please ring the doorbell, to make sure that I knew as soon as it arrived. In the late afternoon, I checked the tracking information despite thinking, "This is stupid. It's still going to say, 'Out for delivery,' and you won't feel any better." Instead, it was marked "delivered," with the time stamp being the current time. I went to the front door, and saw the driver getting back in the van. The incredulous feeling of "No doorbell? Really? I know you saw the sign" was quickly overcome by elation at finally (and just in time) having this giant box of water filters physically in hand. (I have since realized that our new doorbell does not always respond to a light press. I need to fix that.)
Woohoo! It's a box of one hundred filters!
An impressive fit.
Of course, the box did not go to waste.
By amazing luck, and with some careful cramming, one hundred filters fit perfectly in the luggage, with room in the pockets for a few more if need be. I met Louis and Yolanda, and sat with them through their long awaited customer service to avoid interrupting it. I was worried that the bag would prove too bulky, given the rest of his luggage, but when we made the handoff, he graciously assured me that the pocket space in the luggage would be perfect for his sparse needs.
The filters are now in Louis' capable hands.
The GoFundMe campaign chugged along for the next few days, eventually pausing one dollar short of the goal for an entire day. That was surreal enough that I almost didn't mind the prospect of it stopping there. But we shortly raised enough to buy a few extra filters. I ordered them to be delivered to Louis' son's address.
After that, it was out of my hands, but I couldn't relax with the "Phew, it's done" feeling until I saw the photos of the delivery. Feeling that I had already imposed enough, I had imagined that the filters would simply be handed off to the humanitarian aid group, so that Louis and Yolanda could spend their time in P.R. in the ways they already had planned. Instead, I saw that they had accompanied the group, taking a central role in distributing and explaining the filters to the appreciative villagers. They seemed enthusiastically pleased about their opportunity to help so many people. (This is not even slightly surprising, knowing them.)
Delivery day! (Photos by Louis and Yolanda.)
(All of these photos are used with the consent of the photographers and subjects, except for my cats.)
For the denoument, I wrote back to the Sawyer representative who had helped me. I had been in unfamiliar territory for most of this project, so her help regarding the filters had been quite useful. I explained the successful conclusion of the project, attached a photo of the villagers, and thanked her and Sawyer. A heartfelt "thank you" can make someone's day, and it has. For all of us.
My deep gratitude goes to:
- The many generous contributors to my fundraiser. Your kindness gladdens me.
- My esteemed associate Louis and his esteemed wife Yolanda, who gladly took on my proposed task of bringing the filters to Puerto Rico, and then went above and beyond by personally seeing them to their destination in a remote mountain village.
- The student group who happily included the two extra people and their oversized luggage full of filters in their delivery of humanitarian aid.
- Sawyer, for providing the filters at cost. We could only have bought one-third as many filters, otherwise.
Even though my project is done, it's not too late to help more Puerto Ricans get access to clean water! You can still donate to these folks installing larger water filters for villages.
Now I'll ramble about the whole endeavor. Well, not about how it started, since I already covered that here. (tl;dr: Louis (whose awesomeness I cannot overstate) was due to visit his home in Puerto Rico, so I proposed to give him a suitcase full of tiny water filters to bring with him.)
This was another of those "I've never done anything like this and have no idea what I'm doing" projects, that often turn out surprisingly well.
I wrote to Sawyer, and their customer service representative told me that Sawyer had already donated ten thousand filters to relief efforts following Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria. Further, they now produce versions of two of their filters in cheaper packaging (clear plastic bags instead of hard clamshells), and sell those at cost for further relief efforts (not for retail). This meant I could order the Mini filters for $9 each instead of $25-$30 each. Also, the bags would take up less space than the clamshells, making this the superior product for transporting in large numbers.
I had no idea how many filters I'd wind up raising money for, nor how many to aim for, nor how big a backpack or suitcase we would need. So I asked for the dimensions of the filter bags, measured the dimensions of my biggest piece of oversized luggage, and divided the latter volume by the former volume. I knew perfectly well that this was absurd, because the bags weren't rectangular solids, but it was all the information I had to work with. And if we wound up with more filters than we knew what to do with, well, that would be a good sort of problem to have. We'd figure something out, I knew.
I had come up with a figure of 91 filters, so I set their cost as the goal of my first ever GoFundMe campaign. (I neglected to add GoFundMe's fees into the amount I would need, which didn't matter because we eventually exceeded the goal by enough to cover the fees.)
Meanwhile, Louis found out that Yolanda's cousin was already doing relief work in Puerto Rico, and could connect him with people who would bring the filters where they needed to go.
I think it was Karen who got me wondering whether Spanish language instructions were needed. Wikipedia informed me that most Puerto Ricans were not fluent in English. Sawyer didn't have Spanish instructions for the Mini filters, though they sent me a PDF of their Spanish instructions for a different filter, in case it helped. I carefully photographed the instructions, which was complicated by glare off of the plastic bladder they were printed on. (It curved enough that I couldn't get an angle that captured the whole thing without reflecting the flash.) I posted the photos (with the PDF for assistance) to the /r/translate subreddit, to no avail. But then I expressed my concern to Louis, and he assured me that the relief workers would be bilingual, and could explain as needed.
Sawyer had informed me that shipping to my zip code would take four days. I had planned to end the GoFundMe campaign and order the filters with a few days to spare, so that I could see how much space the filters took up, and (if necessary) buy an appropriately sized backpack or suitcase for them before handing them off. I knew that Louis was due to leave for Puerto Rico in early January. I asked him exactly when this would be. It turned out that he was leaving the state to be with relatives for the holidays, then heading straight to P.R. from there. Whoops! My bad: I should have asked much sooner for his travel details. This didn't leave much time at all for the fundraising campaign.
I made a new plan: It looked like the campaign might eventually meet its goal, so I preemptively ordered one hundred filters, six days before our last convenient chance to make the hand-off. (We live nowhere near each other, but share a martial arts class.) I chose one hundred because I guessed that I could cram that many into the oversized luggage, and it was probably roughly the most that the campaign would raise funds for. I would cover the cost if the campaign was short (I had planned to buy some anyway, in addition to paying for shipping), and if we got enough to buy more filters than that, I could place a small, supplemental order addressed to Louis' son's house.
After I placed the order, day four came and went, with no filters showing up. So did day five. On the day of our last class before he left, I asked for a tracking number, and found that delivery was expected on day seven. I realized that I had been an utter idiot: Four days was a typical delivery time, any time of year other than the week before Christmas. I was worried that this was about to get extremely inconvenient (and possibly more expensive, if I had to reship the filters after him). But I was also relieved that the tracking hadn't claimed, "Delivered on day 4" [and presumably stolen off of my doorstep]. In class, he told me that he and his wife were coming back to town the next day, so if I got the package in time, I could meet him. But they were leaving the state early in the morning after that.
I had some nail-biting hours the next day. I put a sign on the door asking the delivery driver to please ring the doorbell, to make sure that I knew as soon as it arrived. In the late afternoon, I checked the tracking information despite thinking, "This is stupid. It's still going to say, 'Out for delivery,' and you won't feel any better." Instead, it was marked "delivered," with the time stamp being the current time. I went to the front door, and saw the driver getting back in the van. The incredulous feeling of "No doorbell? Really? I know you saw the sign" was quickly overcome by elation at finally (and just in time) having this giant box of water filters physically in hand. (I have since realized that our new doorbell does not always respond to a light press. I need to fix that.)
Woohoo! It's a box of one hundred filters!
An impressive fit.
Of course, the box did not go to waste.By amazing luck, and with some careful cramming, one hundred filters fit perfectly in the luggage, with room in the pockets for a few more if need be. I met Louis and Yolanda, and sat with them through their long awaited customer service to avoid interrupting it. I was worried that the bag would prove too bulky, given the rest of his luggage, but when we made the handoff, he graciously assured me that the pocket space in the luggage would be perfect for his sparse needs.
The filters are now in Louis' capable hands.The GoFundMe campaign chugged along for the next few days, eventually pausing one dollar short of the goal for an entire day. That was surreal enough that I almost didn't mind the prospect of it stopping there. But we shortly raised enough to buy a few extra filters. I ordered them to be delivered to Louis' son's address.
After that, it was out of my hands, but I couldn't relax with the "Phew, it's done" feeling until I saw the photos of the delivery. Feeling that I had already imposed enough, I had imagined that the filters would simply be handed off to the humanitarian aid group, so that Louis and Yolanda could spend their time in P.R. in the ways they already had planned. Instead, I saw that they had accompanied the group, taking a central role in distributing and explaining the filters to the appreciative villagers. They seemed enthusiastically pleased about their opportunity to help so many people. (This is not even slightly surprising, knowing them.)
Delivery day! (Photos by Louis and Yolanda.)
(All of these photos are used with the consent of the photographers and subjects, except for my cats.)
For the denoument, I wrote back to the Sawyer representative who had helped me. I had been in unfamiliar territory for most of this project, so her help regarding the filters had been quite useful. I explained the successful conclusion of the project, attached a photo of the villagers, and thanked her and Sawyer. A heartfelt "thank you" can make someone's day, and it has. For all of us.
