The Online Reflector

A life-changing weekend inspired Indianapolis native Seth Maxwell to start an organization that has given clean water to over 34,000 people.

This weekend started with him seeing pictures and hearing stories of a friend who had just returned from Africa. The next day, he saw a screening of “Behind the Gates,” which was about the 1994 genocides in Rwanda. Then the following day his church declared that they were going to be getting involved in the water crisis.

“Pretty much in that three day period, my world view was being shattered,” Maxwell said.

From that point, he started learning more about the water crisis and started talking to his friends. They decided to buy 1,000 bottles of water and walk along Hollywood Boulevard offering water to passersby  in exchange for a moment to talk to them and enlighten them on the global water crisis.

“By the end of the day we had raised awareness to 1,000 people and then everybody gave back for the bottle of water that they took so we were able to turn 70 bucks into 1,700 bucks and rehabilitate a broken down fresh water well,” Maxwell said.

After that, Maxwell started getting phone calls from people asking him to bring his organization to their church or school.

“I thought, ‘my organization? We’re eight college kids,’” Maxwell said.

Nonetheless, they decided to give it a shot and in the first month raised over $9,000.

“So The Thirst Project was really born out of a bunch of 19-20 somethings just really reaching out to people we knew, people our age and seeing what we could collectively do to make an impact.”

Bringing it to UIndy

Senior event coordinator Ryan Brock has a ritual of meeting with friends each Monday at Greenwood’s Strange Brew coffee house. It was there that he met Seth Maxwell through a mutual friend. Brock has been involved on campus in many ways and, after hearing Maxwell’s story, he knew that he wanted to hold an event for The Thirst Project at UIndy.

“I saw this as my opportunity. I’m gonna make this big thing happen,” Brock said.

The event was held on Feb. 20 at 7 p.m. in Christel Dehaan Fine Arts Center’s Ruth Lilly Performance Hall. Performers included UIndy band, The Sages, the Ty Caldwell Trio and Drake Bell.

Brock started planning the event in October. A table was set up to accept donations and increase ThirstIndy awareness the week of the event. Brock was pleased with the turnout on Feb. 20 that raised over their goal, a total of $10,088.45. It was enough to provide 500-800 people with clean water for the rest of their lives.

“I am so overwhelmed by what we did together at ThirstIndy,” Brock said. “Seth brought us a message that he clearly is so passionate about, and I know that I, for one, caught that fire. I think that people realized that when we start listening to the cries of those near and far, we truly can make a difference in this world. That’s exactly what we did together; we saved hundreds of lives. This is huge.”

Concerts with cause

The night started out with an introduction and Seth Maxwell giving his first speech.  Maxwell continued to speak in between bands, his speeches getting more powerful each time.

The first band to perform was a band comprised of UIndy students, The Sages. They kept the crowd engaged with their high-energy performance and rock ‘n’ roll sound.

The next band was a local band, the Ty Caldwell Trio. Their music had a sort of folksy sound that you could not help but clap along with.

The last performance was by Nickelodeon star and singer, Drake Bell. He had the shortest performance, but was the performer to have the crowd most excited. He also stuck around long after his performance to sign autographs and meet his fans. This was the first Thirst Project event Bell had ever performed for, and he credits it all to Maxwell.

“His passion gave me inspiration to really make me want to be a part of this,” Bell said.

According to Bell, he was excited to perform for the cause at UIndy.

“One-sixth of our planet lives without access to clean water. That’s insanity,” Bell said. “The fact that it’s not big news or all over the front page is mind blowing.”