BYU taps into clean water drive

The tables of 36 Utah dining establishments are a long way from the cluttered streets of Amritsar, India, or the villages of Cote d'Ivoire, but the areas are linked by a simple glass of drinking water.

In recognition of World Water Week, which runs Sunday through March 28, multiple restaurants and private clubs throughout much of the state are participating in UNICEF's Tap Project.

Patrons at participating restaurants can donate a dollar for the glass of water they typically receive for free to support the project, which last year raised $855,000 for water-improvement projects in Belize, Cote d'Ivoire, Iraq and elsewhere. An estimated 2,300 restaurants were part of the project last year, but this is the first year for Utah's official participation.

Much of that credit can go to a group of Brigham Young University public relations and advertising students who branched off from paid clientele and embraced the volunteer effort.

Lisa Williams, a third-year BYU student and self-described "newbie" to the PR program, said the group broke up into teams and hit the state to get restaurant partners onboard.

Although the group embarked on the project just last summer, their efforts brought on participants from as far away as Richfield in the south to Ogden in the north. Multiple restaurants and private clubs in Park City stepped up as well.

"Everyone was really receptive," Williams said. "We were very surprised. What has been amazing for me as a student is to see how giving the community has been."

Multiple radio spots and television public-service announcements are scheduled to run locally next week in support of the campaign, a billboard has gone up in Utah County along I-15 and BYU's ad lab created an advertisement promoting the Tap Project that ran March 4 in the New York Times.

While that was an admittedly "oh wow" accomplishment for the group, Williams said the greater reward has come from seeing how many volunteers wanted to get involved based on the simple acknowledgement that everyone deserves readily accessible and clean drinking water.

She said the bulk of last year's fundraising dollars — a little more than $323,000 — went to the Brobo Village of Cote d'Ivoire, where children were often forced to walk miles to get to the nearest water pump. The money paid for the installation of new water pumps, and previous efforts improved water supplies to hospitals and health clinics.

Skyler Stevenson, a university student and Utah Tap City coordinator, said the project has been unique because not only did students "create" the campaign, they implemented it by going out into the cities and recruiting restaurants.