Local Water Access Issues Highlighted As Part Of Online, International Campaign 

YouTube superstar Mr. Beast – real name Jimmy Donaldson – is the face of crowdfunding campaign #TeamWater, which aims to raise $40 million by the end of August to provide 2 million people around the world with access to clean water.

In the week since the video announcing the #TeamWater campaign was published on Aug. 1, it has garnered more than 46 million views. According to a counter on the video’s site, the campaign has already raised more than $10 million.

George McGraw is CEO of Dig Deep, one of the campaign’s U.S. partners that works to ensure that every American has access to a working tap and toilet at home. 

“There are several million people in the U.S. without any access to running water at home,” McGraw said. “So no taps, no toilets. Many of them get water from outside their home, or use some other coping mechanisms to get through the day.”

#TeamWater funds will directly support Dig Deep’s Appalachian Water Project in West Virginia and eastern Kentucky. McGraw said the campaign raises awareness that water access issues don’t just exist far away. 

“They exist right here at home and they’re challenges we can solve together, in fact that we’re solving every day,” McGraw said. “To have that opportunity, that platform, and be able to center voices from places like Central Appalachia, I think is really powerful, and why we’re really excited about this.”

People associated with with #TeamWater and Mr. Beast’s team were recently in West Virginia to see DigDeep’s work on the ground and collect footage that can be seen in the campaign’s announcement video.

“They spent days in the field, watching construction work happen in a couple hollers and neighborhoods, really trying to understand, sort of the hoops people jump through every day just to get enough water to make it through the day,” McGraw said. “The frustrations, the joys and the wins, too, of what we’ve been able to accomplish with folks. And it was really wonderful to work with them.”