CHARLESTON, W.Va. –– Charleston’s Redeemer Lutheran Church is just one of the West Virginia sites participating in Saturday’s World Vision Global 6K For Water, with people at hundreds of sites worldwide coming together to walk and run for clean water in developing nations.
The length of the run or walk is 6 kilometers or 3.72 miles.
“That’s the average walk that — mostly children — a child or a woman will walk to go and find water for their families for that day,” said Jennifer McIntosh, organizer of the Redeemer Lutheran Church event.
Often, she said, the walk is dangerous, children are forced to miss school and the water is dirty.
For the first 3K Saturday, participants will carry empty water containers. At the halfway point, they’ll fill containers with dirty water that they’ll carry for the final 3K.
More than 300,000 West Virginians in parts of nine West Virginia counties lost access to usable tap water in the aftermath of the 2014 Freedom Industries chemical spill on the Elk River.
“I know that whenever I would do housework or fold clothes, cook or whatever, I was always thankful that I had food and that I had clothes, but I never thought about being thankful for water until we had the water crisis,” McIntosh said.
“I think we can reflect on that and realize what it was like to not have clean, accessible water.”
Registration opens at 8 a.m. Saturday at Redeemer Lutheran Church and the walk starts at 9 a.m. Participants can sign up prior to Saturday online at teamworldvision.org/team/Redeemer.
Costs are $50 for adults and $25 for people age 15 and under with the proceeds going into global water efforts.
World Vision, a non-government provider of clean water, works to bring clean water to families and communities throughout the world.