9.13.09 The Holland Sentinel

ZEELAND, MI- Darlene Vander Wilt wandered into downtown Zeeland Saturday morning looking for some entertainment for her sons.

What she got along with it was some powerful knowledge about a growing global problem.
The Vander Wilt family of Zeeland visited the Global-Local Water Festival in Heritage Square in Zeeland, where about a dozen nonprofits, whose collective goal is to provide clean water to undeveloped areas in the world, gathered to create awareness of the problem.

“I learned how many different parts of the world actually have trouble with clean water,” Vander Wilt said. “I knew a lot of people had trouble with water, but there is a lot more than I thought there were.”

Event organizer Dennis Nagelkirk said 80 percent of all the world’s diseases stem from not having access to clean water, and dirty water kills more people each year than cancer, AIDS and warfare combined.

The festival, he said, was a fun and entertaining way to let people know the scope of the problem and also to show that there are several local organizations working to make a difference.

Along with several informational booths and demonstration of many types of water filtration, there were games for kids, food booths, craft stations and several live bands performed throughout the day.

“One of the reasons I felt compelled to do this is because 1.8 million children under the age of five die from diarrhea every year. That’s just diarrhea. This problem is the biggest thing facing humanity right now,” Nagelkirk said. “This (festival) is a communications tool. It’s to have a good time and it’s also to let people know there are some great organizations in their backyard doing some amazing things around the world.”

Nakisha DeJong, the children’s ministries director at Community Reformed Church in Zeeland, hosted a booth Saturday promoting the church’s annual Water Walk, which raises money for WaterAid America. Several people learned about the walk for the first time, which DeJong said is exactly why the church wanted to be a part of the festival.

“It’s amazing exposure. I’m most excited that organizations in Zeeland are getting together, working together and sharing resources together,” she said. “I think anything we can do to raise awareness of this issue around the world is a good thing.”

Vander Wilt enjoyed the venue through which the message was delivered.

“There was plenty (for the kids) to do. It was fun,” she said. “I hope they do it again next year.”

Gary Brower

9.11.09 The Holland Sentinel
ZEELAND, MI- Dennis Nagelkirk will never be the same after visiting India’s Pipe Village, which is made up of people subsisting in discarded sewer pipes without adequate nutrition or drinking water.

Once back in West Michigan, he had a new perspective on our affluence during a visit to Rivertown Crossings Mall in Grandville.

“There was just this huge culture shock, and I asked myself, ‘Am I going to keep subscribing to this culture?” said Nagelkirk, 32.

Instead of continuing with life as usual, Nagelkirk started his own nonprofit, 30perperson.org, which is hosting the first Global-Local Water Festival in downtown Zeeland from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday.

The event is on Elm Street between Main Avenue and Cherry Street. It will bring together the West Michigan groups attempting to bring clean water to the 884 million who go without it each day. The water groups attending are Living Water International, Water Missions International, Friends of Children’s Village, Safe Water In Ecuador, WaterAid and Aqua Clara.

The event will include live music spliced with speakers and games for kids.

Aqua Clara spokeswoman Casey Dawson said the festival will be a chance to educate and network.
“It’s great to see all these organizations come together for the same cause,” she said. “A lot of people don’t know these organizations exist or what they’re doing.”

Nagelkirk said the day will be successful as long as a few people comprehend the simple message of bringing clean water to the masses.

“We’re trying to give a chunk of the world’s clean water,” he said.

Peter Daining

3.06.2008 Grand Haven Tribune
CHARDON, Ohio. One of the country’s largest producers of industrial sand has teamed up with a Holland-based foundation to supply 1,000 sand filters to villages in underdeveloped countries. The filters will provide safe drinking water, according to Fairmount Minerals Ltd. in Chardon, Ohio.
A Fairmount Minerals subsidiary, Standard Sand Co., is located in Grand Haven Township.

Fairmount’s partner in the project is the Aqua Clara Foundation, a nonprofit faith-based group that is focused on developing inexpensive systems to locally generate sustainable supplies of potable drinking water. The Aqua Clara water purification system cleans and disinfects polluted water that may come from rainfall, polluted ponds and unsanitary shallow wells without boiling to kill the pathogens. Fairmount and Aqua Clara developed the filters with the help of the engineering department of Hope College.
“In addition to providing clean water, our focus is on increasing industry in the region,” Aqua Clara Director Bob McDonald said. “We want to teach local business people to make the purifiers and sell them to support their families. Once people experience the difference clean water makes and value its importance, we’re confident they will buy these units to use in their homes.”

Fairmount President Chuck Fowler said the program’s first locally owned business involves the production and sale of family-sized filters and the installation of a large water filtration unit that serves a school complex in Kenya.
According to the World Health Organization and United Nation’s Children’s Fund, more than half of the world’s population has access to safe drinking water for the first time in history, thanks in part to the use of sand filter technology that’s actually more than a century old.
A leading producer of industrial sand, Fairmount employs more than 350 people at 18 mining and mineral processing plants in the United States and Canada.