Brad Paisley and the H2O tour 2011!

We are very excited to be partnering with Water = Hope and Hope Through Healing Hands on the Brad Paisley on his H2O tour again this summer! Last year, Lokahi helped develop the Water = Hope campaign, and took the idea on the road, educating tens of thousands of country music fans about clean water issues, working with hundreds of volunteers across the nation, and raising enough donations to build wells in Africa!



Once again, we'll be taking to the road, talking to country fans all over the US about the importance of clean water and the role they can play in bringing water to millions of people around the globe. Last year, from the support of country fans across the nation, our partner Hope Through Healing Hands built three wells in Liberia, Uganda, and Ethiopia and installed water purification systems in homes lacking access to water in Appalachia. This year, we hope to build more wells and service more homes for families to have clean, safe water at home and around the world.

We can't do this with out your support - we need to volunteers to join us again this summer! Volunteers get an amazing opportunity to engage in important water issues, inspire fellow fans, and check out a Brad Paisley concert!

Learn more and get signed up today!



Visit our photos and blog to learn about the work we did with Brad on the 2010 H2O tour.

H2O Tour Wraps Up!

The H2O tour has wrapped up its summer run, and Lokahi is proud to have partnered with the Water = Hope campaign to build lots of support for clean water issues amongst country fans!

Our final two weeks on the tour were a bit of a whirlwind, with stops in San Francisco, San Diego, Phoenix, Albuquerque, Boise, Salt Lake City and Denver. Along the way, as always, we were joined by some amazing volunteers!



San Francisco and San Diego brought out lots of veteran volunteers, many of whom worked with us on tours with the ONE Campaign in years past – it was great to see familiar faces like Rochelle, Mary and Christine – all of whom were among the first ONE volunteers we ever worked with! It was a lot of fun to get to talk to so many fans while in California. From there, we moved on to Phoenix, where we were amazed to learn it can be over 100 degrees in September, go figure! We were joined by a massive crew of volunteers, including some veterans from our work on the Warped Tour and with Dave Matthews, and lots of new volunteers from local high schools and colleges as well. Albuquerque proved to be one of the best nights on the entire tour; we were joined by an AWESOME team of volunteers: college students and high school students and community members who all are passionate about clean water issues. We had one of our best nights of the entire tour in Albuquerque, a direct result of our awesome volunteer team! We also met author Sandra Postel who has written extensively about clean water issues; she was in the crowd and saw our PSA show on stage before the show, and came out to find us! You can learn more about her here.



As we headed out for out the very final weekend of the tour, we made our first stop in Boise, Idaho. After an eventful first couple of hours (including trying to track down our missing tour bus!!), we met our awesome volunteer crew for the night. The venue that we were at was on the Boise State campus, so we weren’t surprised that we had many dedicated BSU do-gooders! We had Katelyn and Daniel, freshman year roommates who actually went to their dorm and signed-up their whole floor, as Tara with her friend, as well as a couple other students. We also had a mother with her three daughters who were huge Brad Paisley fans and did awesome throughout the night!! All in all it was a great first night back, thanks to all the cool people and Water = Hope supporters that Boise had to offer.

After a three AM bus visit from Easton Corbin and his crew due to their bus breaking down, we landed in Salt Lake City and met our one man volunteer crew for the night. Josh, who had just moved to SLC recently to pursue his love of skiing, worked by himself and helped get the majority of our sign-ups for the night. He is really dedicated to volunteer work, and expressed over and over how much he really liked Water = Hope’s vision and goals. It was great working with him and we are so thankful to him for helping us out in Utah!

Next we were off to Denver, Colorado, a bit unhappily because it would be Water = Hope’s last night working with the tour. We weren’t ready for it to end! However we couldn’t have ended the whole journey with a better crew, twelve dedicated and hardworking individuals who agreed that we should end it all with a bang! We had a group of four people that came individually and throughout the night bonded over the Water = Hope work, and they ended up leaving as friends after watching the show together. Then we had our basketball girls, who all played together on the local high school team. Michaela, Lindsay, Bree and a few friends worked the entire night to get those donations and raised almost two hundred dollars between them, as well as getting a ton of signatures. All you Colorado-ians were so supportive of Water = Hope and we had such a huge amount of people walking up to the table that we could barely talk to all of you! In between watching the crew play pranks on the artists as they performed and watching the donations pile up, I think everyone agreed that we had a great last night in Denver!



After four months of weekends full of talking to fans about clean water in 33 different cities, we are proud to announce that Water = Hope hit our goal of raising $20,000 to build wells, and signed up nearly 14,000 people in support of the Simon Water for the World Act. Perhaps more importantly, this means that some 14,000 conversations about clean water happened over this summer between our volunteers & campaign team and the fans in each city, and we can only hope that some of those 14,000 people are going to share that message, get inspired to volunteer themselves or even lead clean water initiatives in their own communities.

None of this would be possible without the hard work and help of the 239 volunteers that joined us this summer; they inspired us night after night with their dedication – again, a HUGE thank you to all of you that joined us! We are proud to know that they’ll take what they learned and work to inspire thousands more this fall and spring on their campuses and their communities so that we can bring clean water to even more people.

Water = Hope and Lokahi truly believe in this idea of ‘a small drop making a big ripple’; the work of our volunteers and the fans that supported the campaign this summer is all the evidence that we need.

Keep checking in for more campaign updates and ways you can get involved; visit the Water = Hope/Hope Through Healing Hands Facebook page to stay updated, and check out all of our pictures from the summer!

In Detroit and Pittburgh with Water = Hope

Water = Hope paid a visit to Detroit and Pittsburgh this past weekend as part of our ongoing work on the Brad Paisley summer H2O tour!

We were greeted by enthusiastic fans and volunteers in Detroit, which made for a great night! We talked to lots of people, including several who were interested in volunteering and becoming involved with the campaign on a local level and on their campuses, something we always like to hear.



Our volunteers consisted of two ‘teams’ of people: Stephanie and Nicole, sisters on their summer break (from college and high school) and our team of enthusiastic high school girls: Erica, Emmy, Betsy and Marissa.



Our crew did a great job, talking to lots of people and getting them excited about bringing clean water to people around the world. We were a bit limited in what we could do in Detroit due to the way the venue was set up, but our volunteer crew were true troopers, making the most of it and getting a record number of fans to take part in our text message fundraising campaign.



We loaded up our stuff and got on the tour bus bound for Pittsburgh the next day. Saturday morning we were greeted by the tour crew worried about thunderstorms that never actually materialized (we seemed to be blessed by the weather fairies this tour, knock on wood!) so we set up somewhat concerned, but forged ahead. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any volunteers joining us that night (Pittsburgh - we need some people, sign up and join!) but we made the most of it, signing up lots of new supporters and raising money to bring a needing community a well. Fans are really excited about this idea, really responding to the notion of the Paisley & country music fan base being able to create clean water for those that need it through the combined small actions of many over the course of the tour. While walking the lawn before the show, I talked to lots and lots of people who were really excited about what Water = Hope is doing, so we are eager to get community efforts moving in Pittsburgh as well!



After loading out once Brad was finished Saturday night, we were surprised to find Josh Thompson and some of his band setting up for an impromptu midnight bluegrass session next to our bus! Josh is a big supporter of Water = Hope, not only taking part in our PSA but always ‘re-tweeting’ our Twitter posts and helping to spread the word on Facebook, and he’s a great musician and all around nice guy. It was a great way to end a wonderful weekend!

We’ll be back out again this weekend before we take a break while the tour goes to Europe. We will be in Darien Center (Buffalo and Rochester regions of NY) and Philly on Friday and Saturday - as always, we’d love to have you sign up and volunteer!