When you sit down to enjoy a beer, you probably don't spend a lot of time thinking about one of its main ingredients – water. Or the fact that 3,000 children die each day from diseases caused by unsafe water.

A group of innovative Rotarians aren't just thinking; they're doing something about it.

Their group, Beers Rotarians Enjoy Worldwide (BREW), has organized events around the world and is working to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for Rotary's global water, sanitation, and hygiene efforts.

"By drinking a beer, I can help bring fresh water to a village in Africa," says Steven Lack, a member of the Rotary Club of Pleasant Hill, California, USA. "If you can drink beer and some of the money goes to doing good in the world, that is something you can feel good about."

Fellowships like BREW are Rotary's way of bringing together members who share a particular passion. Rotarian Action Groups unite members who have expertise in a specific service area. The beer fellowship's leaders realized that joining forces with an action group dedicated to providing access to clean water would create a sum larger than the two parts.

"Beer and water have a natural affinity; you need water to brew beer" says Moses Aryee, past president of the Rotary Club of Accra-West, Ghana, and co-chair of the beer fellowship. "Our vision is a global approach to fresh water around the world, because beer is around the world."

The fellowship members are working with the Water and Sanitation Rotarian Action Group to identify specific water projects to support by funneling 25 percent of the fellowship's dues to those projects, says Lack, the fellowship's vice chair.

The members also plan to approach major brewers on each continent to seek financial support for water projects, much as the nonprofit Water.org is receiving $1.2 million from Stella Artois.

These projects have the potential to improve people's quality of life in several ways. Every day, 8,000 people die of waterborne disease. In addition, women in many parts of the world spend hours a day fetching water, time they could spend caring for their families, generating income, or making other contributions to society.

"We are very enthusiastic about the opportunities to work together," says F. Ronald Denham, a past chair of the Water and Sanitation Action Group and a member of the Rotary Club of Toronto Eglinton, in Ontario, Canada. "On our side, we can present and describe the projects. BREW will establish relationships with the breweries. And some of the members are senior executives in breweries. It's a wonderful synergy."

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