Water

This was a nice piece in Philanthropy Age about movie star Matt Damon's efforts around water access.  I've been a fan of Damon since his Bourne movies, and am glad he's been able to translate his fame, fortune, and desire to serve into a great vehicle to do so, which is water.org.

I got a chance to meet Gary White, the guy who helped make that non-profit possible, when we both attended our first British American Project conference in Los Angeles in 2008.  I found Gary to be extremely nice, extremely funny, and extremely thoughtful.  One of my favorite memories of that conference was going to a water bar in Santa Monica with Gary and watching the merchant extol him on the purity of their offerings.  Gary took the whole sales pitch in with a straight face and then schooled us after we left the establishment on what a load of crock it all was.  (See the video below: Gary's in the red shirt, and the woman in the grey shirt is giving us all the hard sell.)

The next year, he had hooked up with Damon, and water.org has been doing good stuff worldwide ever since.  Kudos to Damon, White, and water.org, and let's not forget that basic water access is not yet available to so many millions of our brethren.