About the What About Blue? Campaign

What About Blue? is an emerging non-profit aimed at bringing attention to the Global Water Crisis on a local, national, and international level by asking others to think about "Blue," or the ways in which they use water in their daily life.

In July 2009, Kevin Lilly, Danielle Katz and Brian Coggan kayaked across America on the Mississippi River to raise awareness for this issue. The campaign took over 3 months to complete and took its toll on the trio. Team Blue fought terrible weather, faced off against barges and oil tankers and saw a kayak sink north of St. Louis, MO to describe a few of their troubles. All in all, the campaign was a success and helped raise money to build a freshwater well in Africa (announcement coming in August 2010 related to this well).

‘What About Blue?’ exists to encourage people to think specifically about Water and all the ways it is used in our lives. The organization’s mission is to enhance the awareness of Water and inspire action to preserve, cultivate, restore, protect, conserve, and share safe water.

WAB aims to not only raise money to help combat this critical issue (Did you know that over 1.2 billion people live without daily access to clean drinking water?) but to create a network of individuals around the globe who are linked by their passion and concern for water.

Money raised will go to charities working on water issues, locally and nationally preserving and restoring waterways, and internationally to help build wells for those without access to clean water.

Some people talk about the environment... Others put it all on the line. That’s “Team Blue.” Three young adventurers - all from different walks of life – all united by one high-reaching mission: to call attention to the world’s global water crisis.

Adventure-Raising Awareness To achieve their goal, they’re going to kayak the length of the Mississippi from Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico. That’s 2,500 man-powered miles! They will be camping along the river banks, embracing nature-the heat, the bugs, the storms, joining up with local conservation groups and projects as well as interacting with all sorts of local characters, all to create awareness for the Global Water Crisis. The Journey begins July 20th 2009 in Bemidji, MN and ends October 2009 in New Orleans, LA at Voodoo Fest.

Everyone Can Be Blue-Uniting Communities As the backbone of their What About Blue awareness campaign, every mile of Team Blue’s journey will be documented and shared in a powerful multi-media integration of rolling footage, blog entries, scheduled major media appearances and a specifically dedicated web site (www.whataboutblue.org). What begins as the journey of three individuals turns into a nationally shared experience. Team Blue fans won’t just watch their travels on local and national news, they’ll be able to sign in, read blogs, post their own thoughts and reactions, track Team Blues exact whereabouts via GPS, and even communicate directly with the Team! Sign up to follow us on our journey!

The Power of Blue-Inspiring Action At the culmination of their adventure, Team Blue arrives in New Orleans, just in time for Big Easy’s annual Voodoo Fest. The What About Blue campaign continues as Team Blue takes their message worldwide, using the friends found and stories heard along the way to reach a greater goal... to create a global “brand” for water - as in “What About Blue?”... and to contribute efforts toward creating access to clean water for everyone, and everything that needs it.