A few months ago, Dallas Crum couldn’t sleep. He was up thinking about water and walking. More specifically, he was thinking about the millions of people worldwide whose days revolve around walking to get water.

Dallas is a co-founder of Vivid Roots, a local nonprofit that works to increase access to clean water, education, and health services in underserved communities. Dallas co-founded the nonprofit in 2013 with three friends, Dylan Carlson, Connor Kingsbury, and Trever Bostrom. Since covid, Vivid Roots has halted travel to the communities where they had been working (more on this below) and pivoted to raising awareness for the cause locally. And while they have still completed some awesome and important projects, it didn’t just feel the same.

So, there was Dallas, crunching numbers in his head in the middle of the night.

Every day, 277 million people around the world walk an average of 3.5 miles to access clean water. That’s about 105 miles on foot a month. Typically, it’s women and children walking to water and they carry about five gallons each time. That’s about 42 pounds of water. Every single day they do this. They have to. There is no other choice.

“I added the numbers up and thought, what would it be like to walk from Boise to McCall?,” he said.

105 miles. 5 gallons. Dallas had an idea.

A 105-Mile Walk for Water

On Monday, March 21, 2022, Dallas will start walking from McCall to Boise with a 2.5-gallon jug of water in each hand. He plans to walk the entire 105 miles in a week while carrying 5 gallons of water.

At the heart of the 105-Mile Walk for Water is awareness. Because most of us don’t really have the slightest idea what it’s like to live life constantly worrying about water.

If you’re reading this, chances are you could get up right now and walk a few feet, turn on a faucet, and have clean water flow out until you turn it off. But that’s not the case for 771 million people around the world who live without access to safe water every day. That’s twice the population of the United States! As a result, 1 million people die from water-related illness every year and it’s the third leading cause of death in children, mostly kids under age five.

The other goal of the 105-Mile Walk for Water is funding. It costs about $30 to $60 to get someone clean water for the rest of their life. (That's like a week of Starbucks. Crazy.) Vivid Roots wants this project to raise enough money get 1,000 people clean water for life.

Starting March 1, you can make a pledge for each mile of the walk. A pledge of just $0.26 per mile would give someone clean water for their entire lifetime. You will also be able to pledge more, like $0.50 per mile or $1 per mile, which would give an entire family clean water for the rest of their lives. Or you can make a straight up donation to the cause. Vivid Roots has also partnered with a handful of local businesses that will be matching donations throughout the month of March.

Dallas will start walking on Monday, March 21 – the same week as World Water Day, which is on March 22. He is planning to follow Highway 55, so be on the lookout if you make the drive. He’s starting from McCall and will walk about 30 miles the first day, then dwindle to 25 miles the second day and so on. By the end of the week, Dallas plans to walk right into Treefort Music Fest in downtown Boise, where Vivid Roots will have a booth set up.

Shortly after he came up with the idea, Dallas started training. “I could hardly carry it a mile when I first started,” he said. He’s been hitting the gym a few times a week to build up basic strength and spending several days a week walking around his neighborhood with his jugs for as long as he can. In the month leading up to the walk, he’s bringing them pretty much everywhere he goes, even to meetings and events for his other job.

In training, Dallas can't help but get a daily dose of reality. Kids and women carry 5 gallons in their arms and on their heads and shoulders for 2-3 hours every single day. "And here I am, a 220-pound dude who goes to the gym occasionally and sometimes I can hardly make it," he laughed.

Live Vividly

Vivid Roots inspires people to live life to the fullest and help those in need along the way. A core part of the organization has been Impact Adventures, which are service trips to a community in need in Ecuador or Guatemala. They work very closely with community leaders to find out what needs a community is facing and what type of project would help the local people solve that problem for the long run.

These projects are very much a partnership. It is not a bunch of Americans coming in, building something and then leaving. They are collaborative projects where locals are empowered by the solution.

The Vivid Roots team has lengthy conversations with community leaders and government officials to determine a larger, long-term strategy to solve issues such as year-round access to clean water or safe schools and healthcare facilities. Vivid Roots gathers a team of donor volunteers who travel to the community and get to work. The group is usually greeted by a few dozen locals who are ready to get to work alongside the Vivid Roots crew. And building is just one piece of it – education is the other. It’s not enough to just build a new water filtration system. Because what if it breaks? Someone has to fix it. And Vivid Roots wants locals and community leaders to be educated and empowered to do the fixing.

“We want to give and help but we want to make sure we are giving a hand up and not a hand out, if you will,” said Dallas.

You can learn more about the trips here. They are hoping to start up again soon.

Stop talking, start walking

With trips on hold, Vivid Roots has been focusing on empowering the next generation of change-makers right here in Boise.

"We want young people to realize that if you see a problem in the world, we can't just talk about it. You've got to get together, learn about it, feel empathetic to others, and then take action," said Dallas.

Vivid Roots has been working closely with Boise schools to create programs where local kids can learn about a global issue, like the water crisis, and do something to work towards a solution.

Last year, a 6th grade class at Hawthorne Elementary hosted a Walk for Water fundraiser. The kids set out to raise enough money to provide water filters to people living in the community of Escalon Arriba in Guatemala. Instead, the kids raised more than $4,500, which far exceeded expectations. It was enough to fund a project to install water-holding tanks at 40 family homes in the community, creating year-round access to clean water for about 200 people.

"Hopefully the idea is that kids can apply this to whatever is interesting to them – any problem that they want to solve," said Dallas. "The only way problems get solved is when people start moving their feet, not just their mouth."

Vivid Roots is challenging you to not just talk the talk, but to walk the walk. That's the (literal) connection between Vivid Root's mission and the 105-Mile Walk for Water.

"There's a lot of talking right now in our world and it's creating a lot of dissension. I would venture to say that most people that are talking about problems are not doing a single thing about them," said Dallas. "Even if you're just like, making a donation to someone or doing the research – take the next step. We need to start moving our feet, and our feet need to be moving faster than our mouths."

You can learn more about Vivid Roots and support the 105-Mile Walk for Water at vividroots.com/walkforwater.

Thanks for reading!

With love from Boise,

Marissa

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