Norman — A story of need in another part of the world moved a local girl and many of her friends and basketball league comrades to help people they may never meet.
The group was part of the Hope 4 Haiti Bake Sale, a bake sale and cookie sale during a weekend of Upward basketball games at Norman’s First Baptist Church. With proceeds from the sale, as well as one weekend’s proceeds from the snack bar available during league games, girls from two of the Upward teams were able to donate $768 to Water Is Life, a program working to help provide clean drinking water to areas with need.
Eleven-year-old Sammie Thiege, a fifth-grader at Jackson Elementary School, along with the help of her mother Beverly, spearheaded the event in the days following the Haiti tragedy.
The straws that are donated through the project allow the users to drink any sort of water, even water known to be contaminated, safely.
“The straws filter the impurities out through a charcoal process so that the water is safe and clean to drink,” said Bill Hildenbrand of Water Is Life. He said each straw costs $10 and lasts about a year before needing to be replaced.
While the project has sent straws all around the world, its most recent focus is in Haiti. Hildenbrand said “tens of thousands” of the straws have been there since the Jan. 12 earthquake that decimated that country. The straws paid for through the Norman group’s donation should be in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, by now, Hildenbrand said.
It’s not Sammie’s first such project to help others. Using skills she learned from a baking class at Moore Norman Technology Center, she has raised money with bake sales to send soccer balls to childred in Africa and also for the Matamoris Children’s Home in Mexico.
Members from the Storm and Shockers teams involved in the project included Marisa Fleck, Katelynn Hill, Cayla Checorski, Morgan Hailey Hearon, Phoebe Jackson, Savannah Long, Jennifer Byrd, Jaymi Zeller, Sammie Theige, Madalyn Creed, Micah Bryant, Sara Karki, Michelle Durham, Alyssa Smith, Jennifer Smith, Haley McGee and Shelbi Irwin.
For more information on Water Is Life, visit www.waterislife.com.
Christian Potts
366-3544
cpotts@normantranscript.com
