Clean water is essential to a healthy and productive life.  Not only do we need safe clean water to drink and cook with, we need clean water for washing.  Without the ability to bath or wash clothes, employment opportunities are limited.  Additionally, children who go to school unwashed are often stigmatized by their peers.

Currently, 70% of Puna households, on the island of Hawaii, do not have access to safe drinking water in their homes. This is due in large part to the County's inadequate and very limited water infrastructure in Puna. Click here for a map of county water service areas in Puna. The county has no plans to expand water service in Puna.

The majority of Puna residents must therefore catch and store rainwater, in some form, for their day to day use.  Rainwater catchment can be a good source of water. Unfortunately, setting up and maintaining a rainwater catchment system that produces safe clean drinking water can be prohibitively expensive.

For those who cannot afford a catchment system or an expensive filtration system, the County of Hawaii maintains 6 public water spigots in Puna, a district with a total area of just under 500 square miles.

If you live in Puna, you can drive to one of these county spigots and collect water in a Jerry Can.  Thats right, here in the United States, citizens have the right to line up daily to collect water and bring it home.

If you don't want to stand in line for free county water, then you can buy water from a private vendor.

We believe that access to clean safe water, at or very near the home, is essential to raising healthy children.  We are looking for ways to address both the immediate water needs of the community as well as the systemic issues underlying the lack of basic water service to a large portion of the Big Island.

Currently we are:

1. Using a survey, administered by our Outreach Workers, to identify specific water needs and issues, especially for families living in poverty.
   
2. Pursuing a small pilot project to provide simple and affordable home filtration for families in need.
   
3. Raising public awareness about water issues in Puna. We are constantly amazed by the numbers of individuals living in Hilo and elsewhere on the Island that are completely unaware of the water situation in Puna.