Pete Davis is an amazing guy. Not only does he successfully
operate his own business, the Dundee Manufacturing Company in Southeast
Michigan, and raise scholarship money for University of Toledo College of
Business and Innovation students, he devotes his time and energy to direct
another organization, Hope2Water. He started Hope2Water to save lives by
delivering safe and healthy drinking water to children, families, and
communities through philanthropy, advocacy, outreach, and custom water solutions
to the people in Haiti.
Not long ago his organization achieved the milestone of
drilling their first two water wells in Dessalines, Haiti. Davis said, “I was
given the opportunity to go to Dessalines, Haiti, on my first mission there to
help at an eyecare clinic. It was
shortly after the earthquake and when we arrived for our mission there were a
million people living in tents right near the airport. Most of the nine million
people in Haiti don’t have opportunity, and there are no jobs”.
“On the three-hour bus ride to the clinic, we were going
over a bridge and I saw people pulling pails of water from the creek, the same
creek in which other people were washing their clothes. I saw the pollution,
and learned there are an enormous amount of deaths due to water-borne disease.
I became friends with the chaplin at the hospital in Dessalines and asked him
about the water conditions, and he said that five to ten people die each year
in his village alone due to the bad water. These were not only people in his
village but also his family members”.
“That touched me.”
Davis said his next step was to set up a non-profit
organization to be able to raise money to carry out his vision of getting safe
and clean drinking water to the people of Haiti. He contacted an organization
that was already familiar with drilling wells in Haiti and flew to Texas to
meet with Healing Hands International to drill the wells needed in Dessalines.
“They told me it cost $6,000 to drill a well. I didn’t know
if I could raise that much money, but I did know that I had to drill two wells
in Dessalines, community wells for everyone to get water,” he recalled. “So I
said, let’s move forward and do it. I planned to pay for it myself if I could
not raise the money, but in six weeks we pulled together a golf outing in
Michigan which raised $12,000.”
Davis later returned to Haiti to again help at the eyecare
clinic. “While we were there we drilled
our first well; we hit water at 45 feet down, and it produced 35 gallons of
water a minute. We then drilled the second well, hitting water at 90 feet. We capped them, poured the foundation and
installed the pumps. We were now able to give water via a hand pump to 1,500 to
2,000 people a day per well!”
“We
have identified a pump built here in the United States called Life Pump and
have teamed up with Design Outreach out of Columbus, Ohio to purchase and have
the pumps installed in Dessalines, Haiti," Davis said.
"We have raised enough monies to do 2 to 3 pump repairs in Dessalines by the end of
2018."
"For
2019, we are going to complete an additional 10 pump repairs in Dessalines at
a cost of $100,000."
“It’s just such a basic need, a common thread for everyone
on this planet.”
“In the United States we have a tendency to get inpatient,
that things don’t happen when they should,” Davis reflected. “But I kept giving
it to God knowing he would make it happen; it does test your belief system.”
“I’m good with goals. I want to be able to look someone in
the eye and know I did it for them.”
Like I said, an amazing guy!
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