{"id":2452582,"date":"2019-12-25T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-25T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=318151"},"modified":"2019-12-25T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-12-25T15:00:00","slug":"mulcahy-family-sets-out-on-another-clean-water-mission-in-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/mulcahy-family-sets-out-on-another-clean-water-mission-in-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Mulcahy family sets out on another clean water mission in Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s Note: Sponsored content brought to you by Africa Water Wells<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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After creating Africa Water Wells in 2012, Bud and Sandy Mulcahy celebrated their water well project in Kenya. <\/em><\/strong>
Courtesy Photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

In 2012, an African safari led to a clean water project that essentially rescued an entire village, and in 2019, a fact-finding trip to the same region is leading to more projects that aim to leave life-saving impacts.<\/p>\n

Sandy Mulcahy, who splits her time between Aspen and Arlington, Texas, traveled to Kenya in 2012 with her late husband, Bud, to celebrate their 50th anniversary. Their son Lee, of Aspen, had insisted they go on the trip for years, remembers Sandy, and little did they know that it would be the African people, not the wildlife, that would leave the most lasting impressions.<\/p>\n

The Mulcahys struck a friendship with Yegon Richard, a waiter at their camp who told them about the dire conditions back in his village of Kapkesembe. With no clean water source or electricity, there were health hazards in simple daily tasks such as bathing and cooking, Sandy said.<\/p>\n

The Mulcahys were moved and felt compelled to help.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we were flying from Naroibi (Kenya) to London, Bud said, \u2018we\u2019re going to build them a water well,\u2019\u201d Sandy said. \u201cMy husband was an engineer and one of his side businesses was irrigation, so he was very familiar with water.\u201d<\/p>\n

A dream becomes reality<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The Mulcahy\u2019s second water well project in Africa, called Butik Center, was completed in 2019.<\/em><\/strong>
Courtesy Photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Sandy said too often, people become inspired by a cause while traveling the world, only to return back home and slowly forget about it. She, Bud and Lee were determined to not let that happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe could always see the possibilities in a project \u2014 that\u2019s just the way his mind worked,\u201d Sandy said of Bud, who died in 2015.<\/p>\n

So with Bud\u2019s engineering background \u2014 he worked at the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory and in the aerospace industry \u2014 and tenacity, combined with his family\u2019s collective philanthropic hearts, they got to work.<\/p>\n

They created Africa Water Wells and began collecting donations through their church. For roughly $16,000, they were able to get a hydrologist, secure the proper permits, and hire a contractor to drill the well and install a hand pump, Lee said. In 2013, they added a water tower and tank to the initial well project.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy father spent the first seven years of his life on a farm in South Texas, without electricity and without indoor plumbing,\u201d Lee said. \u201cNot a lot of people in the United States experience that. This project was especially meaningful for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bud recalled to The Aspen Times in 2013 that 200 local children were running behind the drilling trucks and cheering the day the drilling began. What was more astonishing, though, was what the well did for the village\u2019s collective purpose and motivation.<\/p>\n

Not even a year after the water well was built, Sandy Mulcahy said the village had constructed a primary school and hired teachers \u2014 and it was all thanks to the potential that a new, clean water source opened up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey named the school after my husband \u2014 the Clean Water Bud Academy,\u201d Sandy said.<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s Note: Sponsored content brought to you by Africa Water Wells After creating Africa Water Wells in 2012, Bud and Sandy Mulcahy celebrated their water well project in Kenya. Courtesy Photo In 2012, an African safari led to a clean water project that essentially rescued an entire village, and in 2019, a fact-finding trip to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2452582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-19 00:29:22","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2452582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452582\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2452582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2452582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2452582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}