In a community where a common aphorism is, “Where water is wealth,” these Sequim teens are learning the impact of sharing those riches on a global scale.
Chelsea Reichner, a Sequim High School teacher and the school’s Interact club’s advisor, said club members have been focusing on the simple concept of water — how available clean water is to some and not others.
The club connected with Path From Poverty, a Seattle-based organization looking to provide clean, safe water in the form of rainwater catchment water tanks, plus education scholarships, leadership training and solar power technology to better the lives of women in Kenya.
“That (water theme) naturally led to farming,” Reichner said.
A late September afternoon found students from Sequim High School’s Interact club harvesting potatoes they planted in the spring at Chi’s Farm off of Towne Road.
“(This will) help students realize how fortunate they are to be here,” Reichner said.
In February of 2017, Interact club and Be the Change club members put the spotlight locally on the issue of clean water — and raise funds to purchase a cistern — with its Walk For Water project, carrying gallons of water on a 4.3-mile trek from Hendrickson Road to the Dungeness River.
“This was really about what women from Africa do every day; that was a kind of ‘aha’ moment,” student Eva Lofstrom, now the Interact club’s secretary, said.
The idea, Reichner said, is that funding water and food security efforts will ease other global woes.
“Walk For Water is pretty iconic,” said Sean Weber, then the Interact group’s treasurer.
Now the Interact club president, Weber said the event’s message is profound: “They are out there doing this every day of their lives. If we can free up their time (by funding cisterns), that’s wonderful.”
Interact club members also look to impact their community with neighborhood revitalization projects, promotion of literacy through reading nights and mentoring, the Boo Hunger food-collecting project each October, school beautification projects and more.
Supported by the Sequim Sunrise Rotary, the Interact club is also active with WE Charity, an organization seeking to empower communities to lift themselves out of poverty.
Reichner said the club is considering a solar power project for the school.
Weber said participating with the Interact club is more encouraging and fulfilling than going to a job after school.
“We’re all like family,” club member Trey Brouillard said.
Reichner connected Interact students this past spring with Scott Chichester, who at the time was teaching agriculture science at Sequim High, to plant potatoes with the idea of harvesting them this fall.
Chichester, who no longer teaches at the school, was happy to have students come back and get their hands a little dirty.
“It’s nice to be able to give a snapshot or some element of (water’s role),” Chichester said.
