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| NewsSunday, August 19, 2007 11:51 PM CDT |
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B-N to get fill of safe water talk
BLOOMINGTON — A run around the world — to bring attention to the lack of safe drinking water for 1.1 billion people worldwide — will pass through Bloomington-Normal on Tuesday. Some of the 20 runners in the Blue Planet Run will stop at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Carpenters Local 63 Union Hall, 2002 Fox Creek Road, to discuss their mission. “I feel this run is important as a global messenger to raise awareness about the lack of safe drinking water for people around the world,” said Simon Isaacs, 27, a Boston native. Isaacs, among the 20 runners, spoke with the Pantagraph on Friday from Kansas between his legs of the run. Each runner runs 10-mile legs in the relay-style event. The group covers about 160 miles a day and includes men and women, ages 23 to 60, from 13 countries, said founder Jin Zidell of San Francisco. Zidell, an industrialist and philanthropist, told the Pantagraph from the Blue Planet Run Foundation office in Mill Valley, Calif., on Friday that he is focusing on water because lack of safe drinking water affects one in five people worldwide and is the number one cause of health-related death. Zidell — whose wife, Linda, died of cancer in 2001 — said there are solutions to the water crisis. Since 2004, his foundation has funded 11 non-governmental organizations that have implemented 135 sustainable water projects in 13 countries, including India, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Sierra Leone and Mali. Projects are effective but low tech, including hand-dug wells, rain water harvesting and running water from a spring to a village, he said. Runs have been successful in bringing awareness to other problems and the foundation chose a global run “because this is a global issue,” Zidell said. Dow Chemical Co., a diversified company whose projects include water purification, is a sponsor of the run, Zidell said. That means 100 percent of donations go to safe water projects, he said. The eastbound run — which began June 2 in New York City and will conclude there Sept. 4 — has been in the United States, Ireland, Great Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, Poland, Belarus, Russia, Mongolia, China, Japan, Canada and back in the U.S. Isaacs, who had been working on a water project in Rwanda before joining the run, said a highlight for him was celebrating his birthday with the other runners and with a family in a tent in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia. How to help -- Join the Blue Planet Runners at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Carpenters Local 63 Union Hall to offer support or make a donation. A $30 donation may bring safe drinking water for life to one person in a developing country. -- Go to www.blueplanetrun.org to make a donation or get more information. For a $100 donation, local runners may sign up online to run 10 miles with the Blue Planet Runners when they arrive in Central Illinois. SOURCES: Jin Zidell, Simon Isaacs. E-mail this story | Print this story | Search archives | RSS Show comments |  Hide comments | Hide comments on all stories |
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