We believe it’s our responsibility and privilege to connect people to life-sustaining drinking water. And not just here in the Mid-Willamette Valley, but around the world. So when we became aware of an opportunity to provide clean drinking water for a village in Belize, we were excited to go.
Back in April, we visited Belize to learn more about the need: After their water treatment system was destroyed in a flood, the people of Santa Familia were left with untreated river water as their primary source. This was forcing them to buy very expensive purified water, which was not sustainable.
Related: Clean Drinking Water for Belize
After making a plan and raising the funds, four employees from Stutzman Services returned in June as part of a team to install a new water treatment system for the village. But challenges awaited.
Several attempts to drill a water well were unsuccessful, so it was decided that the water source for the village would continue to be the nearby river. And though the team brought most of their tools and materials in suitcases, it was still a significant challenge to source the rest of the supplies from the surrounding villages.
After several days of hard work in hot and humid conditions, the team finished installing the water treatment system and plumbing. Drinking water for the village is now being pumped from the river, through a pre-filtration system, into a holding tank and then through a treatment system. All this is at a local church, freely accessible to the entire community.
Some preliminary training was also done with a few local people to help ensure the system is maintained properly and water samples can be pulled and documented.
What’s next? The rainy season has arrived in Belize, so the team will wait and return in a few months to re-plumb the water system into a new 7,000 gallon holding tank currently being constructed. At that time, we will also do some more advanced training on maintenance and testing.
We approached this project as a working model to learn from, with the ultimate goal of duplicating it across the country wherever clean water is lacking. Our vision of connecting Belize to life has just begun!
