SEATTLE— Starbucks plans to contribute at least $10 million over the next five years to non-profit organizations working to alleviate the world water crisis. The company announced new investments for water programs. These include:
- Working through WaterAid, a $1.12 million grant will help fund a three-year program with the goal of bringing water and sanitation to an estimated 38,500 people of Menge Woreda in the Benishangul-Gumuz region of Western Ethiopia. This represents an expansion of the 2005 commitment from the Ethos Water Fund of The Starbucks Foundation, bringing the total investment to $1.28 million over four years.
- Working through Mercy Corps, a $1 million grant from the Ethos Water Fund of The Starbucks Foundation will expand the reach of a school program to improve children's health and nutrition by fighting the prevalence of anemia and parasitic infections. This funding will enable Mercy Corps to complement these efforts over the next two years with programming in water, sanitation and hygiene education. The entire program is targeted to 170,000 children in 960 schools in four provinces of the Sumatra region in Indonesia.
March 22 was World Water Day and Starbucks attempted to raise awareness for the more than 1.1 billion people worldwide who lack access to clean drinking water. The company sponsored events in 11 U.S. cities to symbolize the difficult struggle that women and children in developing countries undertake on a daily basis to obtain drinking water for their families.
