Oct 01 2011
Last Stops!: Closing down Water=Hope
by Brande Jackson
After working with over 100 volunteers and getting 5000 new supporters for clean water initiatives, Water = Hope wrapped up another fun summer with the Brad Paisley H2O tour!
Our last weekend started out in rainy Philadelphia, where we were still able to have a great night - Philly was one of our best stops on the 2010 tour! - thanks to a hard working volunteer team that braved the elements to talk to fans and build support. We could not have done it without them!
The next day the tour stopped in Bristow, VA, outside of Washington DC. We were joined by a repeat volunteer, Ashley, who brought along her sister this time around, as well as a hardworking (and very funny!) father-daughter team, and two high school friends who were accompanied by mom. Our team did great, talking to hundreds of fans about the importance of clean water; in fact, two of our volunteers signed up over 300 people all on their own, a very impressive feat. And, for the first time in a looooong time, we had a show with no rain, a change we were very grateful for!
Raleigh was the final stop of the tour this year, and we were excited to wrap things up with a big volunteer crew of 10, including about five volunteers who were joining us for the second year in a row. They worked hard to help us end the tour on a great note.
All in all, it was an amazing summer full of incredible volunteers, supportive fans, and lots of love from the Brad Paisley crew. At the end of the day, going out on tour with an artist is really about the chance to use music as a connecting force, and we were reminded time and time again this summer of the compassionate nature of the country community. We are excited to see how many lives are impacted by the work of our volunteers and supporters from this summer!
Aug 09 2011
Water=Hope in Chicago!
by Brande Jackson
The Brad Paisley H2O II tour has been going strong, and Water = Hope has had a lot of success along the way!
We’ve made stops in 14 different cities now, have talked to over 4,000 people about clean water issues and worked with close to 100 volunteers in the process. And we are well on our way with our fundraising goals, using our time on the road this summer to once again involve the country fan community in bringing clean water to communities in need.
This past weekend we made two stops: Chicago and Columbus. Chicago saw our biggest volunteer crew yet, with 17 people joining us, some of whom drove from as far away as Milwaukee to be a part of the action. The team did great - it was our biggest night ever on the Paisley tour.
Columbus had smaller team, but they were very committed and ready to work! The torrential downpour of rain right when the doors opened didn’t even slow them down - they kept right on talking to people that had taken cover in some of the covered areas of the arena!
Our volunteers reflect the diversity of support that surrounds the clean water movement: last weekend alone with had students, retirees, non-profit executives, huge Brad Paisley fans, huge water.org fans, and a long time supporter of Senator Frist (co-founder of Water = Hope) among many others. It’s always exciting to see how issues such as this unite people in one common goal.
We are also pleased to see a lot of ‘return support’ on the tour itself; many fans have told us they supported the campaign last year, and are eager to do so again, buying a new shirt, signing up friends and family for more information, taking our info cards for classrooms, and so on.
We have five more stops ahead, Florida, Philly, DC and Raleigh. You can still sign up to volunteer, and if at one of the shows, be sure to stop by the Water = Hope tent to learn about how your support can enter you into a raffle to win an autographed Gibson guitar from Brad!
Jul 21 2011
NEW Brad Paisley Water=Hope Campaign PSA!
Brad Paisley talks about the importance of clean water for the 1 out of 7 people around the world who lacks access. Please join our Water=Hope campaign today at WaterEqualsHope.org. Donate $10 by texting H2O to 25383; you will receive a confirmation, reply YES. It really is that simple!
Jun 23 2011
Water=Hope is Back on the Road!
by Brande Jackson
We are very proud to be back out with Brad Paisley on his H20 Tour again this year. Our first stops in Virginia Beach, Hartford and Cleveland were a hug success; we talked to lots and lots of country fans about the importance of clean water. As always, we were impressed by how engaged fans were in our project, and how eager they were to help. Our first three shows were a big success, and we are very excited about the remaining dates over the course of the summer.
Like last year, we are also using our work with Brad to provide unique volunteer opportunities for those interested in this issue. By volunteering, you are not only contributing to your community (and getting a free Brad Paisley show as a thank you!) but demonstrating first hand the idea that a ‘small drop can make a big ripple’! To learn more about volunteering and to get signed up, visit:
http://www.waterequalshope.org/volunteer
We also made a stop at Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival this year as well. We were joined by a stellar team of 7 volunteers: Slidana, Jason, Jeff, Sarah, Krystina, Ralph and Audoin. Our team worked very hard in the infamous Bonnaroo dust and sun to educate Bonnaroo fans about why clean water is so important, and what role they can play in bringing it to those who lack it. By the end of the dusty weekend, we had talked to over to 500 Bonnaroo attendees about this important issue, and raised money that will go towards a new well building project - something Bonnaroo fans can be very proud of!
In the months ahead, we’ll be making stops in Texas, Darien Lakes, Chicago, Tampa, DC, Philly and many other cities. We’re always looking for some volunteer support; visit the Water = Hope website to learn more.
May 26 2011
NEW Website Launch! May 2011
by Jenny Dyer, Ph.D.
We are excited to announce the launch of our new Water = Hope Campaign website today! With the new Brad Paisley H2O II: Wetter, Wilder World Tour hitting the road within days, we are thrilled to pull together all the information and tools that Paisley fans and others need to help promote, advocate, and raise money for clean water issues!
Check out our new site today at www.waterequalshope.com!
Don't forget to volunteer to spread the word about Water=Hope at a Paisley show coming to a town near you! Check out our Volunteer Page to apply.
And, finally, stay tuned for fun contests and prizes for those activist-fans who can raise the most funding for Water=Hope! See our new Donation page (with Causevox) and share with friends and family!
A small drop can have a huge ripple. Help us help others have healthier, happies lives right here in America and around the world.
See you on the tour!
Mar 22 2011
Back on the Road with Brad Paisley in 2011!
by BrandeJ
Water = Hope and Hope Through Healing Hands are very excited to announce that we’ll be joining Brad Paisley on his H2O tour again this summer!
Once again, we’ll be taking to the road, talking to country fans all over the US about the importance of clean water and the role they can play in bringing water to millions of people around the globe. Last year, from the support of country fans across the nation, HTHH built three wells in Liberia, Uganda, and Ethiopia and installed water purification systems in homes lacking access to water in Appalachia. This year, we hope to build more wells and service more homes for families to have clean, safe water at home and around the world.
We can’t do this with out your support – we need to volunteers to join us again this summer! Volunteers get an amazing opportunity to engage in important water issues, inspire fellow fans, and check out a Brad Paisley concert!
Learn more and get signed up today!
Visit our photos and blog to learn about the work we did with Brad on the 2010 H2O tour.
Oct 20 2010
H2O tour comes to an end
Our final two weeks on the tour were a bit of a whirlwind, with stops in San Francisco, San Diego, Phoenix, Albuquerque, Boise, Salt Lake City and Denver. Along the way, as always, we were joined by some amazing volunteers!
San Francisco and San Diego brought out lots of veteran volunteers, many of whom worked with us on tours with the ONE Campaign in years past – it was great to see familiar faces like Rochelle, Mary and Christine – all of whom were among the first ONE volunteers we ever worked with! It was a lot of fun to get to talk to so many fans while in California. From there, we moved on to Phoenix, where we were amazed to learn it can be over 100 degrees in September, go figure! We were joined by a massive crew of volunteers, including some veterans from our work on the Warped Tour and with Dave Matthews, and lots of new volunteers from local high schools and colleges as well. Albuquerque proved to be one of the best nights on the entire tour; we were joined by an AWESOME team of volunteers: college students and high school students and community members who all are passionate about clean water issues. We had one of our best nights of the entire tour in Albuquerque, a direct result of our awesome volunteer team! We also met author Sandra Postel who has written extensively about clean water issues; she was in the crowd and saw our PSA show on stage before the show, and came out to find us! You can learn more about her here.
As we headed out for out the very final weekend of the tour, we made our first stop in Boise, Idaho. After an eventful first couple of hours (including trying to track down our missing tour bus!!), we met our awesome volunteer crew for the night. The venue that we were at was on the Boise State campus, so we weren't surprised that we had many dedicated BSU do-gooders! We had Katelyn and Daniel, freshman year roommates who actually went to their dorm and signed-up their whole floor, as Tara with her friend, as well as a couple other students. We also had a mother with her three daughters who were huge Brad Paisley fans and did awesome throughout the night!! All in all it was a great first night back, thanks to all the cool people and Water = Hope supporters that Boise had to offer.
After a three AM bus visit from Easton Corbin and his crew due to their bus breaking down, we landed in Salt Lake City and met our one man volunteer crew for the night. Josh, who had just moved to SLC recently to pursue his love of skiing, worked by himself and helped get the majority of our sign-ups for the night. He is really dedicated to volunteer work, and expressed over and over how much he really liked Water = Hope's vision and goals. It was great working with him and we are so thankful to him for helping us out in Utah!
Next we were off to Denver, Colorado, a bit unhappily because it would be Water = Hope's last night working with the tour. We weren't ready for it to end! However we couldn't have ended the whole journey with a better crew, twelve dedicated and hardworking individuals who agreed that we should end it all with a bang! We had a group of four people that came individually and throughout the night bonded over the Water = Hope work, and they ended up leaving as friends after watching the show together. Then we had our basketball girls, who all played together on the local high school team. Michaela, Lindsay, Bree and a few friends worked the entire night to get those donations and raised almost two hundred dollars between them, as well as getting a ton of signatures. All you Colorado-ians were so supportive of Water = Hope and we had such a huge amount of people walking up to the table that we could barely talk to all of you! In between watching the crew play pranks on the artists as they performed and watching the donations pile up, I think everyone agreed that we had a great last night in Denver!
After four months of weekends full of talking to fans about clean water in 33 different cities, we are proud to announce that Water = Hope hit our goal of raising $20,000 to build wells, and signed up nearly 14,000 people in support of the Simon Water for the World Act. Perhaps more importantly, this means that some 14,000 conversations about clean water happened over this summer between our volunteers & campaign team and the fans in each city, and we can only hope that some of those 14,000 people are going to share that message, get inspired to volunteer themselves or even lead clean water initiatives in their own communities.
None of this would be possible without the hard work and help of the 239 volunteers that joined us this summer; they inspired us night after night with their dedication – again, a HUGE thank you to all of you that joined us! We are proud to know that they'll take what they learned and work to inspire thousands more this fall and spring on their campuses and their communities so that we can bring clean water to even more people.
Water = Hope truly believes in this idea of 'a small drop making a big ripple'; the work of our volunteers and the fans that supported the campaign this summer is all the evidence that we need.
Keep checking in for more campaign updates and ways you can get involved, and visit our Facebook photo albums to check out all of our pictures from the summer!
Sep 15 2010
Water = Hope goes to Washington!
We started our weekend off in Spokane with some great volunteer help: college students, a high school student and parents involved with a local home schooling organization all came out to lend a hand, doing a great job and signing up lots of new supporters for the Water = Hope campaign!
Our next stop was in Portland, where, after a summer of blazing heat and humidity, we were shocked to find ourselves...cold! Once again we were joined by an awesome volunteer crew: Chris just moved to Portland where he is soon to be joining the Portland Fire Department (congrats Chris!), and he was joined by Danielle, who is in nursing school in San Francisco but was visiting the Portland area. Ryan and Sarah are both students – Ryan is in med school, in fact!
And we also had Kate joining us, who literally just moved to Portland the week before to attend college, and was looking for volunteer opportunities to get involved in her community. All of our crew did a great job in Portland, roaming the lawn area and talking to fans about the campaign, gaining their support. Though it was a smaller show, Portland showed us lots of love and support and we are excited to continue our organizing efforts in the community.
Next up was the Gorge, located in the middle of Washington state, and quite possibly the most beautiful music venue in all of America. We were way excited to be working there, and it was a HUGE show, with more fans in attendance than almost any other show we'd been at! We were joined that night by Randy and Kim, a husband and wife team who had tickets to the show but wanted to help out. They came in went to work, signing up well over 100 new supporters in a short amount of time, talking to lots and lots of fans before joining their son and mom (or mom-in-law!) in their seats. They also made a very generous donation to Water = Hope, helping us reach our well building goal all that much faster, for which we are most appreciative!
We were also joined by our two recent Washington State U grads (a big Washington U rival game was going on that night, and, depending on who they talked to, they either got lots of love for their hoodies, or a lot of grief!) who were eager to get involved, and three new volunteers that Laura from Spokane had recruited for us (thanks Laura!).
All in all, it was a great three days, full of inspiring stories from fans, and lots of support and enthusiasm about our work.
We are nearing our final stretch of the H20 tour, with only two weekends remaining. Watch for us in San Francisco, San Diego, Phoenix and Albuquerque this weekend! And we still need volunteers for Denver, St. Louis and Boise! Sign up today!
Check out more photos from our weekend in Washington here.
Aug 31 2010
A weekend in North Carolina!
We arrived in Charlotte on Friday morning and got to work, setting up for the day and preparing for our volunteer crew. We had 11 amazing volunteer join us: Joe, a volunteer from Cleveland, came out with his friend, and we had several groups of high school and college friends joining us as well.
It's been really inspiring to have so many students volunteering for us this summer, and we hope they are able to take the Water = Hope campaign back with them to their campuses this fall!
Charlotte gave us a lot of love – we talked to hundreds of fans about the importance of clean water, with many of our volunteers going out and working the parking lot and talking to the 'tailgating' crowd before they came in, to much success! We also got a nice shout out from a local radio station which helped us out quite a bit – lots of fans mentioned hearing about us before they came to the show that day. We also need to mention that we raised more money in Charlotte for our well building project than we have at any other show thus far on the tour, so a special thanks goes out to our volunteers that night and all the supportive fans!
The next day we were in Raleigh. Our normal set up routine had the added bonus of a GAC film crew being on site; shortly after our volunteers arrived, they came by with Brad to talk to me and Kim about what the Water = Hope campaign was doing on the tour, so watch for us at some point in the next week! Brad also took the time to talk to our volunteers, 10 high school girls (plus a mom and a boyfriend!) who, needless to say, were very excited to meet him!
Our volunteers in Raleigh were a lot of fun; 7 of them came from Wake Early College of Health and Sciences, a college prep high school about an hour away (one of the volunteers, Lizzy, also brought her mom and a friend!), and our other three all attend a local Raleigh high school (sorry for forgetting the name, girls!). All were a blast to work with, and did a great job talking to fans all night long!
All weekend long, we talked with fans who were not only interested in supporting Water = Hope, but who told us stories of things they and family members were doing through churches, schools and in their communities to make clean water a priority for people around the globe – it's so great to see this fan community engaged around this issue!
The tour will resume next week in Spokane as we finally make our way out west with about nine more stops. We still have room for volunteers to join us, so be sure to get signed up today!
-Brande
Aug 17 2010
Water = Hope pays a visit to Florida!
Water = Hope made it out to three different cities this past weekend in Florida, starting in Daytona Beach.
We stepped off the bus in the morning and were pleased to see we were surrounded by all sorts of Daytona Beach fun, including a water park, carnival and the beach a short walk away. We ventured over to beach and walked around for a bit before we had to meet our awesome volunteer crew for the night. We had Michelle come out and bring her husband Derrick, her mother and her nephew Dustin. Michelle was an employee at the local Old Navy store, and took part in their volunteer program (much like our Gap girls that we met in Cleveland). Because she took the time to come out, Old Navy will make a donation to Water = Hope!!
We love seeing more retailers encourage their employees to volunteer like this, and we really appreciate the effort that Michelle and her family put in to make our time in Daytona a great experience!
Next we headed to Tampa where the whole H2O crew, as well as some of the artists, took part in a hundred foot high water slide!! After that we met our crew, which consisted of four high school friends who were last minute add-ons from the waiting list and were really great. Sophia, Stephanie, Kelsey and Sarah were working to fill community service hours for their school and said they had a lot of fun working with Water = Hope and wanted to volunteer with us again. We also had Jamie come out and volunteer, who was very passionate about the water crisis and a lot of other issues that affect third world countries. She was working with a program that requires applicants to volunteer with different organizations and then in return they set you up with volunteer opportunities abroad.
Toward the end of the night we had Andy and Joel, who are musicians that play with Steel Magnolia which is a part of the H2O tour, come by the tent and pick up some Water = Hope shirts. Keep an eye out for them to appear on stage!! Thanks for a great night Tampa!
Our last stop on our tour de Florida was West Palm Beach where we prepared ourselves for a sold out show. We met Jillian, Katelyn and Stephanie who worked hard with us to spread the word about Water = Hope to the people of West Palm. They worked hard into the night and helped us have our best donation night of the three cities! We were very impressed by that, especially considering we only had the three girls working with us. Thanks for your hard work girls!!
We're headed to North Carolina next, visit us as waterequalshope.com/volunteer to sign-up!!