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Shower Strike Top Fundraisers
Top Teams We had some incredible teams this year!! Hydrogeologists Without Borders (pictured above), a partner of Well Aware, really rocked the Strike this year! They raised a total of $13,810 for our joint water well project at Bostons Childrens Centre in Kayole. They also received a slew of media coverage. These guys are good! We have to also give props and a special mention to our local team, EnviroMedia (pictured below), who raised $5,011 (2nd place overall) and were so fun to work with! They jumped into this funky fundraiser headfirst and hit their goal only 3 days in! GREAT job, guys! 
Top Individuals
For the second year running, the amazing, the dedicated, the beautiful Jill Benbow (above) takes first place for individual fundraising!! Striking from afar in Colorado hasn't posed a problem for our star striker who brought in $3,570 all by herself this year! And, check it out. She mountain bikes while on strike! Hard core. You rock, Jill!
We cannot go without also recognizing another top individual striker, Julie Evans, who has also consistently been an outstanding stinker. She topped her tally from last year, raising $3,041 this year!
But, EVERYONE who decided to take on the Shower Strike and sign up this year helped us raised our overall total. And we hope you all know how wonderful you are, as well as how meaningful your sacrifice is.
You can check out more Striker photos on our facebook page Shower Strike album here.
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A Young Professionals Club 
As most of you know, the Austin Cosmopolitan Rotary Club hosted Well Aware's Shower Strike this year, and we were so fortunate to have their support! But, they are not just a regular ole professionals group. ACRC is receiving international attention for being one of the youngest and most effective Rotary clubs world-wide. In addition to raising awareness and funding for crucial international issues, such as the water crisis in Africa, ACRC is also heavily involved in local community work in education, environmental concerns and community development. In a nut shell, this group is really cool. And the meetings are fun and informal. You can check them out on Thursdays at 5:30 at the Clay Pit in Austin. 
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Greetings!
Wow, what a wonderful couple of months it has been! A great deal has happened in Well Aware recently. We raised some funds, built some water systems and are already launching new projects.
We recruited over 100 people to participate in our 2011 Shower Strike and raised just over $77,000! We re so incredibly proud of everyone who played a part in the success of this event. Our participants, volunteers, supporters and donors are all heroes. We will be able to complete five desperately needed water systems from the proceeds of Shower Strike 2011.
We had a REALLY great time at the Shower Strike Launch Party, and if you missed out (you won't want to next year!), you can check out some of the photos, as well as pics of Strikers making the best of their strike week, in our facebook album here.
So that we could begin our water system in Mithini immediately, our Well Aware technical team departed for Kenya just days after the end of the fundraiser. They were on the ground to oversee the drilling in Mithini within hours of landing in Nairobi, and after a few setbacks with our drilling equipment (Mithini is the most rural area we have worked, and each repair was a time-consuming undertaking), they confirmed a very plentiful yield from the borehole that will now serve as the beginning of an orphanage (already under construction), low-water agriculture community farming, HIV/AIDS community education center and clean water post for the entire community. It's pretty rad. And, it will serve as a model for surrounding areas to duplicate. Check out our Mithini album here. The team also evaluated other projects underway and new projects we are soon adding while they were there, and I now have a lot of work to do to catch up on our project reporting on our website! We will post pictures (loads of them) to our website soon, too. Many of you have wanted to know why I was personally unable to accompany our team to Kenya this time. I have never missed one of the trips, and it was very difficult for me to have to stay home this time. But, I have an interesting reason- a good one, I think. I am really happy to share with our Well Aware family that I am expanding my own immediate family. Bradley and I are expecting a baby girl this January. I am so delighted to soon welcome the teeniest new member of our Well Aware team to the world in just a few months time. I and the rest of the Well Aware unit are so grateful for your ongoing support and encouragement. With your advocacy and faith in our mission, Well Aware has been able to grow gracefully to accommodate additional endeavors so that we can aid many more people in need of the help that we can provide. That was an unnecessarily verbose way of saying: YOU SAVE LIVES. Thank you.
Sincerely, Sarah Evans
Executive Director
Well Aware
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Meet Our Technical Team
Our Volunteer Hydrogeologists
|  | Well Aware is so fortunate to have two volunteer hydrogeologists working tirelessly on our water systems. In addition to overseeing all technical details of our surveys, project planning, quotes and water testing, they are playing an integral part in enabling us to provide water systems to communities that will be both sustainable and environmentally sensitive. AND, they have just returned from a trip to Kenya for project oversight and evaluation. They are awesome.
Bruce Darling (above), in addition to being a Technical Director at Hydrogeologists without Borders, is also the Principal at Southwest Groundwater Consulting, LLC here in Austin. This year, he has signed on as Well Aware's Technical Support and Advisor to our Board of Directors. There's just not enough room here to write all of Bruce's education and accolades, but, in overview, he holds various degrees and PHD's in Hydrogeology, Mineral Economics and Geochemistry. But he's not just great on paper, he already has significant experience on the ground in Kenya, both in the field and with the governmental water agencies there.
Wendy Robertson is currently working on her PHD in Hydrogeology at the University of Texas at Austin. She also earned a B.S. in Geological Sciences from UT in 2006 and received an M.S. from UVA in Environmental Sciences in 2009. She's basically fantastic.
Both Bruce and Wendy are exceptional people and have given their time and expertise to the people of east Africa. And, they also both just happen to be really great folks.
Thank you, Bruce and Wendy!!
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Ubuntu. "I am because we are."
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We love your feedback! Please contact us anytime by replying to this email or sending a message to info@wellawareworld.org.
Sincerely,
Well Aware
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