Student campaign raises $75,000 to provide clean water in Liberia

Three years ago, a group of Liberty University students formed the TEN Campaign with the goal of providing clean water for Grand Kru County, Liberia. Through a series of fundraisers, students have raised $75,000 to provide 25 wells. The last well will be completed by the end of this month, ensuring the county’s entire population of 60,000 has access to clean water.

Students partnered with The Last Well, an organization that seeks to provide clean water to communities in Liberia, one of the five poorest countries in the world. The organization drills wells, shares the hope of Christ, and plants churches.

“The students of Liberty University have been a vital partner to The Last Well in seeing all of Grand Kru reached with the Gospel and clean water,” said Ryan Tew, associate director of The Last Well.  “Because of the efforts of these students, the remaining water projects for this remote region of Liberia were fully funded. Grand Kru will be the first county in Liberia to have 100 percent coverage with clean water, and we continue to be inspired by the efforts of these young adults at Liberty.”

Grand Kru spans over 1,500 square miles and is the nation’s least reached area for both clean water wells and the Gospel.

At Liberty, the student effort was named the TEN Campaign because the group held different fundraising initiatives over the course of 10 days each semester, challenging their peers to go above and beyond. The group’s motto, “one student-one life,” encourages students to see their generosity as a way of impacting lives on the other side of the world.

Through events such as a night of worship called “Revive Liberia” and a sold-out formal gala in the LaHaye Event Space, at which Todd Phillips, founder of The Last Well, spoke, the TEN Campaign raised more than $21,500 in just 10 days during the Spring 2015 semester. (Watch Phillips’ thank-you message to Liberty students).

Students also created another campaign slogan, “one birthday-one well,” encouraging classmates to give up one year’s birthday gifts toward digging a well.

During the Spring 2016 semester, students raised $33,159 by selling T-shirts and hosting additional fundraising events.

Alumnus Quincy Thompson (’16) founded The TEN Campaign and is still actively involved in the initiative.

“The TEN Campaign began as a conversation between me and a friend on the way to lunch at the dining hall,” Thompson said. “I could never have imagined how far our dream of mobilizing students on campus to do something this big would go. Today, hundreds of students have caught the vision to share the Gospel with the people of Liberia by meeting one of the most basic needs for life — clean water.”

Thompson said the group will launch another push in the spring, where they will focus on a different county in Liberia.

“It is our goal to reach the entire nation of Liberia with clean water and the Gospel by 2020,” he said. “There will be a day when we, as a university, will watch live as the very last well in Liberia is drilled and celebrate how great our God is.”

Christian Alvarado, a junior business major, said he decided to join the TEN Campaign because he believes that it will impact all of Liberia.

“It is important for Liberty to get involved in something like this because as Christians we are commanded to ‘go and make disciples of all nations,’” he said. “We have this tool (clean water) that we can use to help the country, and we will continue to work hard to accomplish our goal.”

• To learn more about joining the TEN Campaign, email powerof10lu@gmail.com or visit the TEN Campaign’s Facebook page.