charity:water owns a little piece of real estate in my heart, so it seems fitting to dedicate my heart surgery.

My heart is pounding as I write this to you. Not because I'm out of breath or nervous, but because I have a heart arrhythmia that causes me to feel my extra heart beats.

When I was first diagnosed, my cardiologist told me that I was healthy and that I merely had extra heart beats. Extra heart beats?! Well, the romantic in me immediately embraced the diagnosis! My doc offered to prescribe medicine to help dull the pounding, but I declined as I decided to welcome the internal beat and physical pounding of my heart throughout the day as a reminder to LOVE in whatever way I possibly can. I have an extra heart beat for my family and friends and colleagues and acquaintances, I have an extra heart beat for the homeless girl living on my block suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, an extra heart beat for the millions of victims of human trafficking, an extra heart beat for the children living in war zones all over the world, I have an extra heart beat for the 748 million people on this planet who live without clean water...

Clean water, like a healthy heart, is vital. They are the most basic of human needs. While I made the best of my condition, I was eventually told by my cardiologist that my heart was working too hard and that I needed to get a heart procedure to improve my quality of life and prevent what could potentially be life threatening. Similar to the millions of people all over the globe who make do with their polluted water that they haul day in day out, and here we have the ability to improve their quality of life and help reduce the heart wrenching number of water related deaths.

charity:water owns a little piece of real estate in my heart, so I can think of nothing better than to dedicate my upcoming heart surgery to helping bring life's most basic need to the 748 million people without clean water.

100% of the money will be used to build clean water projects.