Hope Springs Water, a nonprofit based in Athens, Texas, announced it is expanding its bottled water into three more states via a partnership with Amarillo, Texas-based Panhandle Pure.
The Shelby Report of the Southwest’s Jan Meade caught up with Amanda Bennett, Hope Springs Water’s director of development and administration, to learn the history of the company and how it’s benefiting those in Africa without clean water.
“We really needed someone that could take our little, small nonprofit and we have found such a great relationship here with…Panhandle Pure, just a match made in heaven,” Bennett said. “The bottled water is how we fund our missions – we have donors as well – but we sell the water to bring profit back to the nonprofit mission.”
The organization sells cases and pallets of bottled water, with 100 percent of the profits going to the mission. Retail distribution includes Tyler, Texas-based Brookshire Grocery Co., as well as entities on the border of Texas and in Mexico.
As Panhandle Pure is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amarillo-based Affiliated Foods Inc., the partnership has given Hope Springs Water a new avenue to raise money for the mission.
“One dollar of each case from the Affiliated catalog goes toward the mission,” Bennett said.
HSW was founded in 2010 by Dr. Ted Mettetal after he returned from a mission trip and saw the hardships facing people without access to clean water. He founded HSW to reclaim abandoned, contaminated or rusted wells.
Since 2013, the organization has maintained two water, sanitation, hygiene zones in Ethiopia and Belize. HSW partners with local governments and other nonprofits within WASH zones to provide year-round logistical and operational support to ensure sustainability of the water projects.
The group also helps drill borehole wells, build latrines and teach hygiene through a school-based WASH program that includes deworming and vaccination efforts. HSW expanded these programs to address concerns of female hygiene management in 2016, known as Hope for Girls.
