SA students share mission

It’s a story Michael Baer never gets tired of telling, the story behind Dots in Blue Water.
He tells students about three successive hurricanes battering the island nation of Haiti in 2008.
He tells of a friend who is headmaster of a mission school in Haiti whose students were trapped on the roof of the school for three days without food or water as rising flood waters surged around them.
He tells of 34 students who jumped off the roof in desperation and were drowned.
And he tells of a moment in his classroom at South Adams High School when, after sharing those stories with his students, a hand went up.
“Can we send them water?” a student asked.
Sending bottled water turned out not to be feasible. But the student wasn’t deterred.
Her hand went up again.
“Why can’t we figure out a way to help them have clean water?” she asked.
And Dots in Blue Water was born. The name comes from a child’s description of children lost to the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia.
Now in its fourth year, Dots in Blue Water is dedicated to helping bring fresh water resources to households, schools and missions in Haiti.
This week, Jay County High School students joined that effort.
“South Adams High School would love to work with Jay County High School,” Baer told a group of JCHS FFA members. “Together, we can make a difference.”
Portland Rotary Club, which provided $1,500 in support for Dots in Blue Water each of the past two years, played matchmaker in bringing the two schools together, with Pat Miller, the club’s international projects committee chairman, taking the lead role.
On Thursday, about half a dozen South Adams students and four South Adams teachers came to JCHS to talk with Melissa Wolters’ FFA group.
Baer shared stories about the three Dots in Blue Waters trips to Haiti so far and explained how the project has evolved over the years.
Originally, the focus was on large water purification units at places like schools. But that has shifted to household units that can purify up to 200 gallons a day.
The purification units are deceptively simple in appearance. Each one starts with a 5-gallon bucket and includes a sophisticated osmosis filter, a series of tubes and connectors, and a syringe used to backwash the filter. The more frequently a unit is backwashed, the longer the filter will last.
“We try to address them where they are,” said Baer, “and these bucket purifiers really have done that. … It’s basically a gravity operated system.”
Myron Schwartz, Josh Roby, Alissa McMillan and Baer brought nine of the bucket units to Jay County and helped FFA members through the process of assembling them. Once the units are assembled and tested, they are disassembled and packed for transport to Haiti.
In Haiti, Dots in Blue Water participants — both students and adults — re-assemble the units then train Haitian household leaders in how they work and how they need to be maintained.
Last summer 23 students and 11 adults traveled to Haiti in connection with the project. On June 10, another Dots in Blue Water contingent will leave, taking 150 of the bucket purifiers with them.
Each one costs about $75; the buckets themselves have been donated by home improvement stores such as Ace Hardware, Lowes and Rural King.
Portland Rotary Club purchased 20 of this year’s units, and Jay County FFA members are already planning fund-raisers to provide more of the units in the future.
For more information on the Internet, go to www.dotsinbluewater.com.[[In-content Ad]]