Bellevue woman sees wells built to fulfill her late daughter's wishes

[JohnyCanuck]

There were some posts on the old DU in August 2011 about how the untimely death of a 9 yr old Washington girl, Rachel Beckwith, who wanted to raise $300 to build a water well in Africa lead to over a million dollars flowing into the fund.


Rachel's mother, Samantha Paul, recently made a trip to Ethiopia to see how her daughter's legacy was being put to use.

Rachel had hoped to raise $300 to bring clean water to an African village when she asked her friends and family, rather than buying her presents, to give money to the group called charity: water. She was close to that goal in July 2011 when she was killed in a 13-car pileup on Interstate 90 near her Bellevue home. Support for her cause surged, and nearly 32,000 people donated $1.27 million by the time the charity closed her campaign in October.

Many of those gifts from strangers were for $9 each — a dollar for each year of her short life.

Her mother, Samantha Paul, said Tuesday her trip to the Tigray region of Ethiopia one year after her daughter died hasn't been as hard as she thought it would be. Seeing the need for water in this area and the people that Rachel's campaign helped has allowed Paul to focus on Rachel's gift instead of her death, she said in a telephone interview.

"It made me realize how blessed I am even though I don't have Rachel with me anymore," Paul said.

After arriving Sunday, Paul, her parents, her pastor and some leaders from the charity organization visited two villages that still don't have clean water, so people must collect it from ponds and carry it home.

Next, the group stopped to see a well in progress and help with the drilling.

On Monday, they went to some villages that already have wells from Rachel's campaign and were greeted with a parade, welcome parties, signs, poems, speeches and an invitation to plant a tree in a new community park named for Rachel.

Paul has been impressed by how far the Ethiopian people have gone to make her feel welcome and to show their appreciation for Rachel.

http://refreshingnews99.blogspot.in/2012/07/bellevue-woman-sees-wells-built-to_29.html

[Curtland1015]

1. Amazing story.

How beautiful.