Rotary Members Link Love Of Beer, Clean Water Crisis

When you sit down to enjoy a beer, you probably don't spend a lot of time thinking about one of its main ingredients – water. Or the fact that 3,000 children die each day from diseases caused by unsafe water.

A group of innovative Rotarians aren't just thinking; they're doing something about it.

Their group, Beers Rotarians Enjoy Worldwide (BREW), has organized events around the world and is working to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for Rotary's global water, sanitation, and hygiene efforts.

"By drinking a beer, I can help bring fresh water to a village in Africa," says Steven Lack, a member of the Rotary Club of Pleasant Hill, California, USA. "If you can drink beer and some of the money goes to doing good in the world, that is something you can feel good about."

Fellowships like BREW are Rotary's way of bringing together members who share a particular passion. Rotarian Action Groups unite members who have expertise in a specific service area. The beer fellowship's leaders realized that joining forces with an action group dedicated to providing access to clean water would create a sum larger than the two parts.

"Beer and water have a natural affinity; you need water to brew beer" says Moses Aryee, past president of the Rotary Club of Accra-West, Ghana, and co-chair of the beer fellowship. "Our vision is a global approach to fresh water around the world, because beer is around the world."