Water is life, and a Locust Grove school is helping preserve a number of lives in Haiti.

Through an organization called Water Is Life, The Locust Grove Early Learning Center is sending water filters to Haiti. The ELC donated a check to Water Is Life after collecting over $1,600 in a loose change drive.

The parent teacher organization (PTO) of Locust Grove ELC decided to hold the drive after realizing the great need for pure drinking water in of Haiti.

The pre-k, kindergarten and first grade students of the learning center collected $1,637.44. Mandy Leach’s kindergarten class raised the most, collecting $431. The PTO donated additional funds to make a donation of $2,000 to Water Is Life.

Brice Collier of Water Is Life spoke to the students at Locust Grove ELC on Wednesday and told them about the straws they helped fund.

Water Is Life is part

of Hearts & Hands International, a charity organization that helps children at risk around the world. Water Is Life filters are lightweight straws designed to carry around a person’s neck. A person drinks from the straw, drawing the impure water through a filtration system within the straw.

Each straw contains a series of membrane filters at the bottom of the straw, which is inserted into water. The second stage in the filter is iodine crystals that kill waterborne diseases, including typhoid, cholera, dysentery and diarrhea. A charcoal filter at the top of the straw removes the taste, providing the person with pure, clean water.

Collier said the straw takes out 99.9 percent of the impurities from the water. Each straw has the capacity to filter two to three liters of water for one year. The straws cost approximately $10 each.

Collier said 4,500 children die daily around the globe of waterborne illnesses. One half of the people in hospitals worldwide are ill because of waterborne disease.

“We have it good here,” said Collier. “We just don’t appreciate it.”

After the Haiti earthquake, Collier said Senator Jim Inhofe’s office contacted him to ask if Water Is Life had some straws on hand to send into Haiti. Collier said they had a box of 500 ready to go to Kenya, and they sent that box to Haiti.

Shortly afterward, a member of Collier’s church approached him to ask if straws could be sent to a specific orphanage in Haiti. The church member said this particular orphanage, ran by his client’s daughter, had only five days’ worth of drinking water.

Collier had just sent off all the straws that he had. Collier and other personnel started going through supplies and gathering samples that were not boxed. They collected 60 straws.

When Collier asked the man how many straws were needed at the orphanage, he said, “About 60.”

“That doesn’t just happen,” Collier said. He added that he felt it was a miracle for Water Is Life to have on hand the exact number of straws needed. “That’s only a God thing.”

Collier said it will take three years to clean up all the rubble above ground in Haiti. It could take much longer to clean up all the underground water systems.

Two physicians who were headed into Haiti carried the 60 straws in their suitcases and hand delivered them to the orphanage.

The straws are manufactured in China, but Collier said they have been tested for quality within the United States. Water Is Life currently has 6,100 straws in transit from China. Three thousand are coming by

air, and the remaining 3,100 will be shipped by boat.

Collier urged the students of the Early Learning Center to always listen to the inner voice telling them to help others.

“People saw a need and stepped up,” he said.