International runners bring safe-water issue to WNY
by ELIZABETH TAUFA Reporter

Sean Harrington

Turning on the faucet in your kitchen and having clean water come out probably isn't something you think about every day, let alone feel grateful for.

However, nearly 2.2 million people, most of them children, die each year owing to diseases related to unsafe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene. Water-related illnesses are the single greatest cause of human sickness and death worldwide.

Awareness is the key to stamping out this problem, as solutions have already been established.

One organization is bringing the safe-drinking water issue to the forefront all over the world. The Blue Planet Run Organization has assembled a team of 20 international athletes to run across the globe raising money and spreading awareness of the need for safe drinking water.

A Blue Planet running team will be making its way through Western New York on Tuesday, Aug. 28, changing runners in Gratwick Riverside Park at 4:30 p.m., Niagara Square in downtown Buffalo at 6:30 p.m., the Mobil Gas Station at Highway 240 and Orchard Park Road at 7:30 p.m. and the Knox Farm pedestrian and bike gate (large stone entrance) in Elma at 9 p.m.

Br ynn Harrington

The runners will then continue through the state until they reach New York City, where the run culminates on Sept. 4 at the United Nations building in Manhattan.

The runners take individual shifts of 10 miles for four consecutive days with one day off. They represent 13 countries.

"The most difficult thing about it is traveling around the world and staying in hotels and eating what you're not used to and not sleeping as much," said 30-year-old Sean Harrington, a Calgary, Alberta resident who now lives in Menlo Park, Calif. He and his wife, Brynn, 29, from Milwaukee, Wisc., are the only husband and wife on the Blue Planet team.

"You can't beat the cultural experience," he said. "The most memorable part, though,

was seeing the people, in places like Mongolia we're trying to help, who don't have access to safe drinking water."

"It's really a stark difference between the people who are in need and who aren't," Brynn said.

The Harringtons got involved with the organization because providing safe drinking water is something that is plausible for the entire world.

"I personally gravitated towards water because it's very simple to implement and I plan to be an ambassador for this cause for life," Brynn said. "I was also a runner for 15 years so it was the marrying of two things that I love."

"I heard about it from a friend at a business conference and was immediately excited to get involved," her husband added.

And unlike many problems afflicting the world, this problem has a solution.

A $30 contribution can provide one person safe drinking water for life, according to the Blue Planet Run Foundation, the nonprofit

group organizing the event.

Through the Peer Water Exchange, the BPRF's breakthrough online system that taps a worldwide network of water experts to optimize funding decisions and project management, 100 percent of individual donations made to the foundation are contributed directly to sustainable water and sanitation projects in the rural developing world.

To date, the BPRF has provided funding to 135 water projects in 13 countries.

"I'm really proud that even before the run, there have been 135 successful water projects," Sean said.

Donations for the Blue Planet Run are accepted on the Web site www. blueplanetrun. org.

e-mail: etaufa@beenews.com