No Showers for a Good Cause

A local group called “Well Aware” is taking on a challenge to go a week without a shower to help raise money for clean water systems in Kenya.

Volunteers, like Tara Hays are holding back from taking showers for a week or until they raise a minimum of $1,000.

Hays did it last year and raised the money before the week was over.

"A lot of people think the shower strike is gross but you think about children getting water from a stagnant pond and that's gross," said Hays.

The self-proclaimed "stinkers" will wear these shirts and pins the whole week so people know what they're doing.

The group will have the option of wiping themselves down or jumping in a pool but they can't take a shower - like many Kenyans without access to water.

The hope is to raise $100,000 to help install five water wells.

Well Aware co-founder Sarah Evans, who has been there 3 times, says some women and children walk 10 miles everyday to get 40 liters of contaminated water.

"That's their lives so women aren't able to further themselves or get an education and children are not going to school so it's a cycle that needs to be broken and the way to provide that is by providing clean water," said Evans.

Bradley Markham, a well aware volunteer, has been to Kenya three times and said by installing wells, building pipeline systems and constructing rainwater collectors.
It will change and save the lives of thousands of Kenyans.

"These people are now able to go to school. They are able to bathe their babies. They're able to farm. You know so it's not just drinking water. Water is the corner stone to communities there," said Markham.

The “stinkers” will start the shower strike Sunday.

They’ll have a kick off party Sunday at Antone’s off of 5th street at 7p.m.

To join the shower strike, head to www.showerstrike.com . To learn more about the water crisis in Kenya head to, www.wellawareworld.org .