Charity: Water Founder Focuses on NYC :: Articles :: Gotham Magazine

Charity: Water Founder Focuses on NYC :: Articles :: Gotham Magazine: When Hurricane Sandy struck the East Coast, the apocalyptic images of thousands of New Yorkers without shelter and clean drinking water stuck a chord for Charity: Water founder Scott Harrison. “People see pictures of kids filling our ubiquitous jerricans [yellow jugs pictured] from hydrants and are absolutely shocked,” says Harrison, who volunteered with other Charity: Water staffers to pass out water and supplies in Chelsea and the Lower East Side. “This is what we see in the developing world, but it’s water from a pond or a muddy river. There’s been that kind of tension of, ‘How do we best serve people in our own backyard,’ but also, we’ve made a commitment to 400,000 people [overseas] over the next couple months. The people that we are championing are not on television; they’re silently walking and waiting for people like us to be their voice and stand in the gap for them.”