Charity: Water, Rachel Beckwith's Story

Samantha Beckwith and her parents, travelled to Ethiopia to see some of the wells that Samantha's daughter, Rachel Beckwith, raised the money for.

Last year Rachel was an average nine-year-old with a loving family. She had a heart that wanted to solve every problem in the world and help every person. To make wigs for children that had cancer, she even cut of her hair and donated it to the Charity's saying "My hair will grow back so another child,whose hair can't, can have mine". When in church, there was a sermon performed by Scott Harrison, from Charity: water, who talked about 9-years-old in Africa who don't have clean, infection and disease free water to drink. She immediately decided to help. She created a fund raising page on mycharitywater.org, with her mums help, which told her friends and family to instead of getting her some presents for her up-coming birthday, to donate $9 to help the people in Africa.

She set up a goal of $300 but unfortunately fell short, only raising $220. But she wasn't phased, and said to her mum "I'll try harder next year". Sadly a month later, Rachel was involved in a terrible car accident on the highway I-90 in Washington where a trailer jack-knifed into a logging truck. This sent logs tumbling down the freeway, where more than a dozen cars were caught in a pile-up. The trailer smashed into the back of a car, which had Rachel in it. She was the only person seriously injured and on the 23rd of July 2011 she was taken of life support and died. News quickly spread around of Rachel's birthday wish and people all around the world started donating to her page. Some people gave $9 and some people gave $19. And a month later 30,000 people had given over $1.2 million.

On the year anniversary of her death, her mum and grandparents travelled to Ethiopia to visit the wells that Rachel raise for. The community planned a memorial service in honour of her. After the service, in a nearby church then walked to one of the newest wells and cut the ribbon and watched as children ran over and drank the water. The children all wrote notes about Rachel and gave them to her mum.A mother from the village made a speech and said Rachel’s story would be a lesson to their children. She said that all the mothers in her village were praying for Samantha. Another community sectioned off a plot of land and called it Rachel’s Park. They invited Samantha and her grandparents each to plant a tree in Rachel’s memory. They also made a marble sign which said “Rachel’s great dream, kindness and vision of a better world will live with and among us forever.”

60,000 people in over 100 villages will drink clean water because of Rachel’s wish. Samantha continues to fund raise in Rachel’s Honor.