6K for Water to be held Saturday

For the third year in a row, Havre resident April Taber will be leading a team in the 6K for Water race in Havre Saturday at 9:30 a.m., part of a global event intended to raise money to provide clean water to under-developed countries and raise awareness about the issue.

The World Health Organization reports that 785 million people lack even a basic drinking-water service, including 144 million people who are dependent on surface water, and at least 2 billion people use a drinking water source that is contaminated.

Studies conducted by WHO indicate that thousands of people die every day from maladies caused by contaminated water.

The 6K for Water event, run by WorldVision, a Christian humanitarian aid organization, will see more than 500 teams around the world traveling 6 kilometers, the average length women and children must walk to get water in many of the countries they seek to help, water that is likely contaminated.

Taber said the event raises money through participant registration and direct donations made to specific members of local teams or to teams in general, and will be used to pay for digging wells, building pipelines, constructing clean bathrooms and other facilities that provide or require clean water.

She said donations can be made at https://www.teamworldvision.org by looking up her team name 6KforCleanWater and registration can be done on that same site, with $50 being enough to provide someone with clean water.

Any donation made this week will be matched by a generous anonymous donor, Taber said.

She said people looking to participate in the 6K can do it more or less any way they choose and she’s not very particular about how they participate, characterizing the event as merely a vessel for the larger cause.

“You can walk it, you can run it, you can bike it, you can bring your dog, I don’t care. You can join it with a team, you can do it virtually, let’s just try to raise money and help some of these families,” she said.

Taber said people who want to participate in the walk can also participate in the “water challenge” and carry water back from the halfway point.

She said she hopes this will make people think about what it might be like to have to do that every day just to have access to water that isn’t even clean.

Taber is leading the Havre team which, so far, has 23 members, and has raised $1,560, though they will be taking registrations up until the day of the event, and she said any donations are appreciated regardless of size.

Last year, Taber had to hold the event virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and she said she had far fewer participants than this year or in 2019, though she still managed to raise $2,255.

“I still raised money last year, but it wasn’t as much as I had hoped,” she said.

The previous year, her first as a team leader, she managed to raise $2,675 and had 38 participants.

The 6K will begin at the entrance of the Baltrusch Walking Trail at 12th Avenue and 17th Street.