Donating water may seem an unlikely philanthropic gesture to Minnesotans floating in the "Land of 10,000 Lakes." But after a Chaska couple adopted a girl from Ethiopia, they discovered it was a critical way to give back to her homeland.
During their trip to Ethiopia in 2008, Julie and Tony Gilbertson saw children drinking filthy water out of potholes in the streets, women and children walking miles to the nearest well, and dusty, arid land stretching to an endless horizon.
"You'd come home and be covered with dust and dirt: even my eyelashes were coated," said Julie Gilbertson.
Then there was that haunting request from their daughter Fantaye's relative: Raise her Christian. Give her an education. Do something for her country.
So the Gilbertsons did. On Nov. 20, they'll hold their second pool party fundraiser to call attention to the shortage of drinking water across the planet and raise funds to build wells in Ethiopia.
"At first I thought, 'What could we do?"' recalled Gilbertson. "My kids swim at Foss Swim School in Chanhassen, so I thought I'd ask them [to host a fundraiser]. We've got so much water [in America] that we can fill a pool and chlorinate it!"
It's an odd turn of events for the Gilbertsons, who knew little about the world water crisis -- or nonprofit fundraising -- until adopting Fantaye, now 5. She joined big sister Raina, age 8. According to the United Nations, more than 700 million people in 43 countries suffer from scarcity of water and the diseases that accompany it.
"But the Ethiopians are such wonderful people," Gilbertson added. "They have a simple beauty to their life that we don't have here. That's something we took home as well."
