The goal of the water bottle project was to give people at risk of dehydration in east Van the tools to stay hydrated throughout the summer.
We started by collecting used reusable water bottles off the neighbourhood buy nothing group and left behind bottles from my school gym and community businesses. To wash the bottles, I bought many types of scrubbers and found a way to sanitize bottles safely with bleach. After spending 4 hours washing 35 bottles, I took the bottles to Girls Who LEAP and got the help of 5 other kids and a dishwasher which went much faster.
The first afternoon, with 2 girls who leap mentors, 13 volunteers and 2 coolers and wagons (generously lended by buy nothing members) we handed out 30 bottles on the downtown east side in the span of half an hour. After the success of our first day we branched out to watermelon and cut and handed out 35 water melon packages and 35 more water bottles. The water melon was VERY popular!
An outcome of this project that was unintended was helping youth get to meet and help people they started out afraid of.
Overall the water bottle project was a success, with 75+ reusable bottles given out and 35 water melon packages. Hopefully more people in our community now have the tools to stay hydrated that they deserve.
