Students' passion becomes life-saving charity

The idea for clean drinking water in remote villages first sprouted from attending a conference. Teens Liz Bell, Ashley Stinson and Kayla Sutton had no idea it would grow to raising tens of thousands of dollars and six wells.

The trio founded Cause 6000, a non-profit organization that has raised more than $70,000 to date, and built wells in remote areas of Ghana that need drinking water for the villages to survive.

Bell and Stinson, now 17, and Sutton, now 20, attended the DoGood Experience in Georgia during the summer of 2010, Bell said. It inspired them to do something to improve the way of life in the world.

“We brainstormed, and thought about how selfish we lived our lives,” Bell said.

While at the conference, they got a book about CauseLife, which provides wells to communities around the world. One fact in the book struck a chord with the three women.

“It said 6,000 kids die every day due to water-related illnesses,” Bell said. “That stuck with us the most. One thing you could do was sponsor a well through them. It cost between $4,000 and $6,000 for one well. We wanted to do that by Christmas.”

It was July, leaving them plenty of time. They got several shirts, planning to tie-dye them blue and sell them to raise money. Except they didn’t dye them properly, and most of the dye ended up on their hands, Stinson said. Rather than sell the shirts, Stinson dyed her skin blue and went to the mall, Target and Walmart.

“We weren’t allowed to solicit, but we asked people, ‘why am I blue?’” Stinson said.

They raised several hundred dollars that night, which they invested in screen-printed shirts to sell to raise money for the well.

Their pastor at Christ United Methodist Church heard what they were doing and asked the congregants to consider donating half the money they would normally spend on gifts for Christmas to the women’s cause. The congregants donated about $20,000 to $30,000, Stinson said.

“That was overwhelming,” Bell said.

They raised so much money the three decided they wanted to form their own organization, rather than donate through CauseLife. Bell’s father and one of the men with the DoGood Experience helped them with the paperwork so they would be a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

Their church’s pastor had contacts in Gahna, and put them in touch with a pastor in the country, Stinson said.

He picks out places to dig the wells and hires local people, Bell said. The wells are dug primarily in villages a few hours from Kumasi, Ghana. The workers are paid $2,500 up front to reach water, and are then given the other half of the money once the job’s completed.

“It seems so easy,” Stinson said. “Everyone’s jumped on board with us. We’ve gotten a lot of support.”

It hasn’t been smooth the whole way — she admits that of the six wells, there was a hole dug for one that had to be abandoned because they reached a rocky shelf, and had to dig again. That was $2,500 that was lost. One village had several dry wells.

“There were four wells there already that (an organization) put in that had failed,” Stinson said. “One worked during the rainy season, the others didn’t work at all. We had to drill deeper to get water out of our well.”

Bell, Sutton and Stinson got to see the fruits of their labor last summer. They went with their church on a medical mission trip to Ghana. On the last day of the trip, they took a ride out father than where they were staying, and visited one of the villages with a well, Bell said.

“We got there and got to meet the chief,” Stinson said. “The kids took us to see the well.”

Bell said getting to actually getting to see a well was eye opening.

“It renewed my passion,” she said. “You can get bogged down, that, ‘I need to sell this many T-shirts.’ To see it come to life made me not want to stop.”

Stinson said she loved seeing how proud the village was of the well.

The trio has other plans for Cause 6000, as well.

“We want to spread to India and South America, but we want to have contacts who know the area and where wells are needed, like we do in Ghana,” Stinson said.

Bell said they also have a three-part plan with Cause 6000.

“We want to make sure it has a lasting effect, we want to expand globally and have youth helping youth, and we want it to be not just water, but to care about the spiritual part too,” she said. “We want a missionary or a church planted there.”

Sutton is currently in college at UNC-Charlotte, and is pursuing a degree in non-profit management. Stinson and Bell graduate from Fred T. Foard High School this year. They plan to continue with Cause 6000 while they are in college, and hope some of the others who are involved with the group will continue with it while they’re in college. They said Sutton has expressed interest in possibly continuing it when she graduates.

Bell said she hopes that others will see that they can make a difference, no matter their age.

“Young people have more power than they give themselves credit for,” she said.