JB Young Intermediate School -- Davenport, IA

We are dancing for water because we think people and kids in third world countries should have clean water. The children in the third world counties are dying because they do not have clean water. They have to walk up to 3 hours to get clean water. We think it’s not fair that we have more water than we need while the people in Africa struggle hard to get just enough water to stay alive. We get to take showers and drink clean water without doing anything except turn on a faucet. The people in Africa have to walk to lakes and rivers to find water that is so dirty we wouldn’t even think about drinking it. They drink water that has been used for human waste. We are dancing for water because we think the people in Africa deserve what we have. Please give what you can so people in Africa can get clean water for their families.

--Kevi’Ahnna Wilmington, Nicole Green, Shayla Gales, Vera Clay, Shawnaya Thorpe, Sheniquia Wilson, Sierra Stokes, and Taylor Greenwood

Having water in the United States is like having air, we take water for granted. But in most of the world, water is a precious resource that not many people can afford. Woman and children in parts of Africa travel three hours to get water that is not even safe to drink. Forty-five hundred children die each day because they are forced to drink polluted water. On this planet, 1.1 billion people do not have clean water. How can we help? Just 10 billion dollars would solve this problem. I KNOW THAT SEEMS LIKE A LOT, but with about 6,740,422,806 people on this planet, just one dollar can go a long way. Every last penny goes toward the building of a well in a community that doesn’t have one. To donate to this noble cause, go to the charity: water website.
Remember, 1.1 billion people are waiting. Help them live another day.

-—Meghan Essary




“Water is sometimes sharp and sometimes strong, sometimes acid and sometimes bitter, sometimes sweet and sometimes thick or thin, sometimes it is seen bringing hurt or pestilence, sometime health-giving, sometimes poisonous. It suffers change into as many natures as are the different places through which it passes. And as the mirror changes with the colour of its subject, so it alters with the nature of the place, becoming noisome, laxative, astringent, sulfurous, salty, incarnadined, mournful, raging, angry, red, yellow, green, black, blue, greasy, fat or slim. Sometimes it starts a conflagration, sometimes it extinguishes one; is warm and is cold, carries away or sets down, hollows out or builds up, tears or establishes, fills or empties, raises itself or burrows down, speeds or is still; is the cause at times of life or death, or increase or privation, nourishes at times and at others does the contrary; at times has a tang, at times is without savor, sometimes submerging the valleys with great floods. In time and with water, everything changes.”
—Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci pretty much said it all, but we have voices, too. JB Young students got behind the cause. They danced for water to help raise money to build wells in Central Africa to stop people from dying because they only have dirty water. Kids made videos and wrote blogs. On December 18, 2008, the 8th Grade Class at JB Young is hosting a dance to help raise money for this charity and have a little fun at the same time. We’re raising money by throwing eggs and pies at teachers who have volunteered for this honor @ $1.00 a pop, and, of course, dancing to help raise money. We’re selling Dance for Water tee-shirts and decorated water bottles to raise money for this very worthwhile cause. Many students and teachers have donated money and time to support this cause. If you can, please donate any spare change or extra dollars to help the children of Africa.

--Thomas Newberry


Water. Dance. Blogs. School. Passion. It’s not often that these words come together, but when they do, magic happens. One drop of water—Ms. Bishop showing the Dancing for Water website to her social studies classes—quickly became a flood of energy and creativity. Kids watched the videos of Associate Principal Mr. Klipsch and art teacher Ms. Mesick DANCING for water, and their ideas immediately began to fall in a torrential clamor that ended only when Ms. Bishop began working with students and the Klipsch family to transform their ideas into reality.

We are blessed with the fire of creativity and activism, kids who care, and adults who will go the distance for kids to make learning and growing both fun and relevant.

-—Ms. Searle