WILKINSON — Later this month, Anny Hicks plans to take some after-dinner walks with her daughter.
She’s mapped out the distance; added up, those strides will become part of a global 6-kilometer run/walk to help provide clean water for people around the world. The culminating steps will be taken May 22 at Wilkinson Church of Christ, during a local event that’s part of World Vision’s Global 6K for Water.
“It’s a small part that I can do to make the life of a child that I may never meet better,” Hicks said. “I can stay here but still help them have a better quality of life.”
World Vision’s Team World Vision recruits runners and walkers to do races as fundraisers for clean-water programs. Some run marathons such as the Indy Monumental marathon and half-marathon in November; others do events such as the 6K.
In some parts of the world, people walk long distances to obtain water to drink. They may be drawing from a murky pond where animals lounge, stir up sediment when they move, or even relieve themselves. The poor water quality can make people sick.
Often children are given the task of carrying water back to their families, lugging heavy cans on a journey that takes away time for schoolwork and leaves them vulnerable to human traffickers.
“I just read yesterday that a child under 5 years old dies every 7 seconds due to unclean water,” Ryan McCarty, senior minister at Wilkinson Church of Christ, wrote in an email to the Daily Reporter. McCarty uses the Global 6K as a launch for endurance training for the November marathon and has become passionate about the cause of clean water.
“I can’t help but believe that if the world can create a vaccine in nine months to rid the entire world of a virus then we can solve the water crisis sooner than the goal of 2030,” he wrote.
Crystal O’Rourke, a Global 6K host site coach for World Vision, said the 6K distance has significance.
“6K is the average distance that women and children in developing parts of the world walk multiple times a day to reach a water source that is usually diseased and dirty,” she wrote in an email to the Daily Reporter. “In fact, the lack of clean water kills more people each year than AIDS and malaria combined, and the child mortality rate is 50% for children under the age of 5.”
People who sign up for the Global 6K pay a $50 registration fee — enough to provide a child with clean water for life.
Those who sign up to participate through the Wilkinson event will be urged to walk six-tenths of a mile daily from May 17-21.
“That can look like walking at Target, picking up groceries … walking around your neighborhood,” said Lydia Holloway, a coordinator of the local event. “It’s very doable.”
Then runners and walkers can go to the church on May 22 to walk the last 0.7 miles. (Six kilometers is about 3.7 miles.)
Participants can come between 10 a.m. and noon to complete the course; the time window is designed to allow people to traverse the course in distanced pods to promote safety amid coronavirus concerns.
“Throughout their walk, we’ll hear stories from the children that they saved, basically,” Holliday said. “These kids almost died to get water.”
Hicks said she is participating because it’s a chance to improve someone’s quality of life through a small sacrifice on her part.
“Our livestock and our pets have better water than these kids have,” she said. “It would be selfish of me not to do it.”
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You can join the Global 6K by completing the distance at home and participating virtually.
Or you can run/walk three miles over May 17-21 and join the May 22 event at Wilkinson Church of Christ to complete the final .7 miles between 10 a.m. and noon.
The event will also feature a jerrycan relay race between children and adults, featuring the cans people use to carry water — cans that can weigh more than 40 pounds when full.
There will be face painting, chalk art on the church parking lot, and hot dogs, water and chips.
To register for the event or make a donation, go to
www.teamworldvision.org/team/wilkinsonchurchofchrist.
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