One of the best parts of our job is getting to meet amazing students from all over Ohio who are doing great things to make the world a better place. This week’s A+ Award winner is fourth grader Elizabeth Falcone, from Lakewood, Ohio.
Her school, the Lakewood Catholic Academy, has a social justice project every year. This year’s project is focused on water access for people across the world. In class, Elizabeth learned about water pollution and how it affects our lakes, rivers, oceans, and drinking water supplies. Through partnership with a local organization, Drink Local Drink Tap, Elizabeth and her classmates learned that some people in Africa, and other parts of the world, have to walk up to 4 miles a day just to get drinking water.
“I think people have a right to clean drinking water and at the end of the year my class is going to walk four miles at Lakewood Park so we know what it is like to walk that far,” Elizabeth shared with us. “We need to do what we can to stop pollution and make sure people can get water.”
Elizabeth decided that she wanted to make a difference and started cleaning up litter in her community. She is also trying to encourage people to stop using single use water bottles, which create a lot of pollution and litter.
“I learned that for $30, a person in Uganda can have clean water for a lifetime!” she shared.
This motivated Elizabeth to raise close to $400 to donate to Drink Local Drink Tap to help build wells in Africa.
Elizabeth plans to continue her work and wants to teach people to “reduce, reuse, and recycle.” She even plans to donate her allowance to help build water sources in Africa!
This weeks’ NewsDepth A+ Award goes to Elizabeth Falcone, for helping people in Africa get access to clean water. Keep up the great work!
Submit your ideas for our NewsDepth A+ segment to newsdepth@ideastream.org for consideration.
