Join Embrace Relief’s 5K Walkathon and Help Build Water Wells in Africa
Make a Year-End Impact with Embrace Relief!
As we head into the 2024 holiday season, you may be considering a charitable donation to help those in need. And there's no better place to make a real impact on the lives of real people than with Embrace Relief! Our Year-End Giving Campaign 2024 offers you three powerful programs to make your generosity count. Your gift can provide clean water, sponsor a cataract surgery, or provide critical care for orphaned children. Select the program you would like to support and make a life-saving donation today!
Hundreds of millions of people worldwide live in poverty, and suffer from terrible illness, as a direct result of lacking clean, drinkable water. But you can help them, and all it will take is a nice, hourlong walk in sight of the Statue of Liberty.
On Saturday, June 25, 2022, join Embrace Relief and support our efforts to bring clean water to millions of people in Africa by taking part in our first-ever H₂Ow Far Can You Walk: 5K Walkathon.
Our 5K Walkathon will take place at Liberty State Park in Jersey City, New Jersey. On-site registration will take place at 8 a.m. that day, with the walkathon getting underway at 9:30 a.m. To register in advance, visit Embrace Relief’s 5K Walkathon webpage. There are three tiers of registration, with each level giving additional gifts and swag to walkers:
- Tier 1 – Pillars of Hope ($15): T-shirt
- Tier 2 – Champions of Service ($25): T-shirt, bracelet, lanyard/medal, sticky wallet OR pop-socket, water bottle
- Tier 3 – Builders of the Future ($30): All items from Tier 2 PLUS a drawstring backpack, print paper certificate, and a pen/notebook OR sweat towel
Why We Walk
Embrace Relief’s 5K Walkathon is a fun event designed to give everyone a chance to get some exercise. But it’s also an important opportunity to understand that in many parts of the world, “walking for water” isn’t a leisure activity: it’s part of a daily routine of survival. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, more than 400 million people live without a nearby, safe source of clean water. To reach their nearest source of life-giving water, people – usually women and young girls – must walk for miles on unpaved roads, under a hot sun, carrying up to 70 pounds of water on their shoulders, neck, and back for hours at a time. This labor-intensive, time-consuming process takes its toll.- Every hour spent traveling to and from a water source is an hour a mother can’t spend raising her children, or a girl doesn’t spend in a classroom earning an education.
- Every mile they walk carrying heavy water containers presents a risk of short- and long-term injuries to the spine and shoulders.
- And in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, there’s no guarantee the water they’re fetching is safe to drink, given how many water sources are above-ground, unprotected, or otherwise susceptible to contamination. An estimated 2 million people die every year from diseases related to drinking contaminated water.
