Like many of their peers around Issaquah and Sammamish, students at the Pacific Cascade Freshman Campus (PCFC) used to think that being able to go to the tap and get a glass of clean drinking water was no big deal. Not anymore.

Thanks to an eye-opening project as part of Caroline Friesen’s World Studies honors class, the ninth grade students have come to understand that almost a billion people around the world don’t have access to clean drinking water, and that the effects reach far beyond ill-health.

Although unsafe water and a lack of basic sanitation cause 80 percent of all disease, and kills more people than all forms of violence, including war, the struggle to find clean water also cripples villages economically and socially.

In Africa, people, mostly women and children, spend 40 billion hours every year just walking long distances for clean water — time that could be spent tending crops, in school, or working jobs.

That’s why PCFC students like Jacqueline Logsdon and her friends have spent the past few weeks raising money for Charity Water, an organization that provides lasting sources of clean water to developing countries.

“The money we are raising goes to help Charity Water build wells. The wells are important because they allow the villagers time to go to school, and to go to work,” Logsdon said. “Having clean water affects more than just health.”

Last week, students were selling t-shirts and stainless steel water bottles for $10 each. The students themselves designed the t-shirts, an aspect of the fundraising that Friesen thought was very important.

“The best part of this is that the students do everything,” she said. “They found out about Charity Water, they took the idea, they designed the t-shirts and organized the fundraising.”

For more information about Charity Water, visit www.charitywater.org.