Project Water is taking a different turn this year as it has many more students that are participating in the annual events and volunteering to help their local communities. The experience, overall, is said to be an event that no current NAI student has ever attended before.  

Project Water is a student-run organization that uses fundraising and service initiatives to offer clean water, as well as education to impoverished areas across the country and around the world. 

Starting in 2015, the fundraiser has driven the effort to provide clean water for destitute people living in Africa and other growing communities. The program is based out of northern Pittsburgh, and was founded by MJ Barton, Dave Bjorklund, and Ben Cinker. Overtime, it was able to emerge as a student-led organization, raising over $100,000 through its yearly dodgeball tournaments held at North Allegheny High Schools.

Sophomore Mackenzie Volpe, a director for Project Water, answers questions that center around this years’ fundraising, as well as the predicted outcome regarding the in-school dodgeball event taking place on May 16th.

When asked whether this year’s Project Water will differ in comparison to the previous COVID years, Volpe pointed out that “since last year we’re bringing back our project experience. It used to be what we call rooms in the auditorium foyer but this year is going to be a bunch of booths in the lower gym. The students get to learn about Sierra Leone and why we were doing project water in the first place, which is something that no one at NAI has experienced before and it is being brought back to NASH as well. The experience will be different this year.”

Volpe shared her thoughts about this year’s projected outcome,“I think there are going to be a lot more people than last year [to sign up]….A lot of people said that they regret not going last year.”

The serious cause of this program is often forgotten in the midst of the dodgeball fun, Volpe hopes to remind students of the cause: “Project water is all about bringing education to underserved communities as well as giving them clean water because that’s something that not everyone gets the luxury of. Project Water works with people across the world as well as people in our own backyard, so the impact is very wide”.

The Project Water director emphasizes that “specifically we partner with EduNations and Sierra Leone, [as well as] multiple other African countries”. To find a list of accomplishments by Project Water and exactly where donations go to, visit Project Water.