A girl grows from holding a hand out to receive into a woman holding it out to help. That is a coming of age story.

Another year has passed and my birthday is almost here. I'm really thankful to have lived another healthy filled with many wonderful people, lessons, adventures, challenges, fun, and surprises! There are very few things to complain about in my life - though I like many others am guilty on occasion of creating the illusion that there are things to ruminate on! Lucky for me, it always ends up being water under the bridge.

Last year, I discovered Charity:Water's work in places where people live without access to clean water. I was shocked to learn that in Africa alone, people spend 40 billion hours every year walking for water. Women and children usually bear the burden of walking and collecting water for their villages and most of the time the water is not fit for human consumption.

There are a host of terrible implications including death from disease (thousands of children die from water-borne illness before age 5) and the danger women and children face while crossing into unknown territories to gather water. It is not uncommon for them to be attacked and preyed on by predators. Also, the children spend so much time walking to collect water, there is no time to attend school. Billions of people are living a poor quality of life beyond my imagination (and yours if you are reading this!)

On my 28th birthday I asked for donations and raised $319 to help bring clean water to those in need! Every penny of the money raised went to funding water projects in regions of the Sahara and Central Africa - not paying Charity:Water staff or operations costs. Each dollar is actually helping real people like the girls in my photo. Charity: water will show us exactly which projects we funded once they've been fully completed (which takes about 21 months). That means we'll know the locations and names of the communities we helped.

This year I'm inviting everyone to join me in a big birthday toast!
Just choose one or two of Jessica's Favorite Drinks from the menu and then donate that amount on my 29th Birthday campaign for Charity:Water!

http://abirthdaytoast.tumblr.com/drinkmenu

A $29 donation representing my life in years would also be a very generous gift, too :)

You can leave me a birthday message and let me know what drink you bought me in the comments section if you'd like.

This means so much to me because I know how many people it will help. Here's to health, happiness, and more birthdays for more people around the world! *Cheers*