Runners raise money for clean water in Malawi

More than 300 runners helped raise more than $10,000 Saturday to provide clean water to impoverished residents in Malawi, Africa.

The main goals of the Running for Water 5K race, on the University of Florida campus, were to raise money to provide access to clean water in Malawi and to raise awareness about global humanitarian causes, said event founder and coordinator Morgan Hightower.

The event raised more than $10,000, and Hightower, 20, is hoping it will be enough to build two wells.

"We also want it to have a snowball effect for other people to get involved with world humanitarian issues and become citizens of the world," she said.

Hightower and her Delta Delta Delta sorority sister, Megan Holloway, are founders of the event and both have a strong passion for the cause. Hightower worked at a camp this summer that benefited the Watering Malawi organization, while Holloway visited Malawi with her family in the summer of 2007.

Going to Malawi was an eye-opening experience, Holloway, 20, said. The majority of the 13 million people are so impoverished they do not have running water, clean drinking water or decent sanitation systems.

One 13-year-old girl she met had to walk five miles every day to reach her village's water source. Once she returned to the village, Holloway noticed how unhealthy the water looked.

She said she was shocked to see that this was the water the girl and her family would drink, bathe and prepare their food with.

Hightower and Holloway both believe if clean water can be provided to the citizens of Malawi it can help prevent diseases, help people become better educated and help improve the quality of life in one of Africa's poorest countries.

It will also help reduce the number of children orphaned by AIDS, which is currently more than 1 million, according to the Watering Malawi Web site at www.wateringmalawi.org.