Iona’s Tara Knights Society held the fifth annual “Hands Around Iona” event to promote awareness and to help raise money to build a water tower in Hamilton Sierra Leone in Western Africa to combat the spread of water-borne illness.

Last Tuesday afternoon, the oldest organization on campus collected donations and addressed the student body about the challenges facing residents of West Africa and their daily struggles, highlighting the need for clean water as a top priority.

Hundreds of students flocked to Mazzella Field to take part in Hands Around Iona and to listen to Iona President Joseph E. Nyre, Senior Director of the Office of Student Success Br. J. Kevin Devlin, and junior Kimberleigh Costanzo speak of the daily struggles our brothers and sisters face for the pursuit of clean water.

“[When] we were devastated by Sandy, we were without electricity, we were without heat. Then at one point, the electricity came on, and we said ‘yay we have electricity, we have heat.’ The inconvenience is over and that’s all it was,” said Devlin. “Yet, every day around the world, they cannot say the same. It is not short-term. For many other people it is long-term.”

Students joined hands and created a circle almost too big for Mazzella Field. As John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ echoed in the background, students reflected upon the everyday luxuries taken for granted. As many of the mundane problems faced day by day seemed to slip into thin air, a bigger picture was painted- that of the millions of people struggling worldwide for clean water.

“The amount of water in a two-minute shower here in the United States is the same amount the average person in Africa spends cooking cleaning, bathing and drinking,” said Costanzo. “In Africa alone, people spend 40 billion hours a year walking to get water, and half of the world’s hospital beds are full of people suffering from water related-illness. Statistics like these are shocking to most of us but absolutely can be changed.” Costanzo is the founder of nonprofit Wellspring Water Incorporated, another foundation working with Tara Knights Society to bring clean water to West Africa.

The event brought in over $300 that will be put towards the ten thousand dollars raised earlier this year in pursuit of the twenty thousand dollars needed to help fund the Sierra Leone water project and support the Christian Brothers’ mission in West Africa.

Water-borne illness affects major parts of our world, but with Iona’s help the dream of clean water for all might just become a reality.

Funds were collected from students who attended the event last Tuesday, but the Tara Knights Society is still accepting donations online at www.iona.edu, or by check made out to Iona College, addressed to: the Office of Student Development, Robert V. LaPenta Student Union.