Join Texas Lutheran University's fundraising to provide clean water for a rural community in need. 

How It All Began:

In 2011, Ed Scharlau came to Texas Lutheran University to speak about Water to Thrive in our chapel. Afterwards, two students, Amy Lees and Wako Bungula, got together with Tim Barr, the Director of the TLU Center for Servant Leadership at the time, and decided that TLU should start fundraising for a water well.

One of the students, Wako, was actually from Ethiopia, and Amy had led a fundraiser and funded a well through her church some years before. After hearing about the group, Elisa Wellnitz joined as well because of her past history with Water to Thrive! And thus, along with a few other students, our first committee sprouted. That year, we planned and organized a Silent Auction and Benefit Dinner. The next year we re-grouped, added another student with W2T history, Chelsea Woodmancy, and had another Silent Auction and Benefit Dinner.

Fast forward to 2023: 

Our committee has now been an official student organization for several years. We host events throughout the year to raise awareness and allow the students, faculty, and staff and community to learn more about why we work so hard. We have improved efforts to do more presentations with local congregations and civic organizations to broaden awareness and invite others to join us in our mission of providing clean water. 

With the support of the TLU and surrounding communities, we know we can make well #10 happen! Water to Thrive has brought awareness to our campus about something so simple we hardly think about it, clean water! Water is so important, it can change a person's life; from spending all day walking to bring home diseased water, to having enough time to start school. We are all people of this Earth, and being a global citizen means that we need to care for each other!