Jim Kauffman was a former mentor of mine, whom I met while living abroad in Italy. A former three sport athlete at Stanford and Director of Student Life at Syracuse University Abroad, he hailed the unifying power that sport has for bringing people together. A dear friend to me, his passing two years ago has been hard to comprehend, but has motivated me to pursue opportunities to better my local communities, as well as those I am not directly connected.

In honor of his kind heart and genuinely altruistic attitude towards life, I am fundraising for an organization which makes human rights oriented projects, tangible. This is charity: water, a campaign that I first discovered in 2013. Over the next two months, starting on January 13th 2019, I will be running 3.7 miles everyday to support those women and children around the world who have to walk that same distance to gather water for their families and communities.

Read charity: water's note here: "Many of us have no idea what it's like to be thirsty. We have plenty of water to drink -- even the water in our toilets is clean!

But many people around the world don’t have that luxury. Every day, about 1,400 children die from diseases caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation. But it doesn’t have to be that way. There are simple solutions like drilled wells, spring protections and BioSand filters that help provide clean water to communities around the world.

I started this fundraising campaign to help charity: water build these types of projects around the world, and I'm looking for anyone who can help me.

Please donate to my campaign -- anything you can give is a huge help.

100% of the money will be used to build clean water projects, and when they’re complete, charity: water will send us photos and GPS coordinates so we can see the exact community we helped."

Friends, please consider donating and helping me reach this fundraising goal. If you are unable to financially support this mission, any motivational support or sharing of this post is also immensely appreciated!