Latest Report from Ernest Taho:
Greetings everyone,
Well the latest efforts continue with more outreach in Washington State with Leon McLaughlin and in Arizona with Martha Childress on Sedona Spotlight. Not only does she do her own radio show but also works with Nancy Rivard, the CEO of Airline Ambassadors International, together they are a unstoppable pair. Back in Febuary, Leon McLaughlin received funds from a generous donation of $2500 to Airline Ambassadors. From this donation, we were able to purchase more replacement filters for the countertop models and a few replacements for the solar unit, which also includes a UV light.
As for me, I did a short piece in a documentary last November and was able to preview it. I hope they decied to release it sometime soon. I have been handling some health concerns earlier in the year but now have things going in the right directions. It wasn’t until March when my son and I continued to doing some installations and replacements after our Winter ceromonies ended and after the replacements arrived from the Airline Ambassadors donation. So far with the HAMP Project, the negotiations have come to temporary end with the water users-end rates are somewhat reasonable. Our filter project will continue to monitor the arsenic levels in the recently installed waterline in the communities. A lot of the work dosen’t happen without your help and our continued out reach to bring awareness to fabulous people like yourselves.
Kwah Kw`a (Thank-you)
Ernest Taho
Note from Leon McLaughlin
Just when we thought it was great it got even greater. Here’s a preview of the article of our Gold Coast Magazine June Edition that I’ll be on the cover of.
I am the founder, chief executive officer and president of the Clean Water Foundation and
responsible for overall operations. I’m a native of Cleveland Ohio and arrived in Seattle
more than four decades ago. In my early days in Seattle, I worked as a staff advisor and did
the settlement of all the shows at the Paramount Theater until the early 1990s. Then I
landed at the Seattle Repertory Theater, where I created “Water for Children” theater
dinner packages. In the mid-1990s, I was also a real estate agent and got involved as a real
estate investor.
Being an entrepreneur, I had an idea of selling coffee making equipment. I started with
Canada as a target market and soon I was selling and sending coffee carts and machines
regularly from Seattle to Vancouver. The coffee business was an enabler for travel to many
locations around the globe. I was fortunate in that my travels acted as a gateway to another
endeavor that is a true passion of mine, clean water. I got interested in one of the key
ingredients to coffee safe clean water. I was struck by how much of the world didn’t have a reliable supply of safe water for drinking, cooking, or even brewing coffee. To hear moreabout Leon’s Watercart story, please visit: https://vimeo.com/280084528?ref=em-share
Realizing there was a compelling global need for safe clean water, I dove deep to learn as
much as I could about water, both domestically and internationally. So, I started
researching the issues, enrolled in online courses from Sacramento State University in
California and earned a degree in Water Management. From there, I created my own
company, LAM Water Solutions LLC, the name drawn from my initials and the predecessor of the Clean Water Foundation to deliver water to developing countries in areas hit by natural disasters, such as floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes.
The solution required a design that was easy to assemble and could be done with little to
no assistance. The conceptualized approach was elegant in its simplicity, like a child’s
Lego set. I envisioned a water purification system that could be snapped together like
plastic blocks and not dependent upon written instructions that could be assembled and
put into operations anywhere in the world by a person with a sixth-grade education. I
identified U.S. manufacturers of purification equipment piping, water bags for storage and
individual containers so children can get fresh clean water at a school or hospital and take
it back to their families and become Goodwill ambassadors.
My intention was to roll out
the introduction of the clean water purification systems to communities with an
inauguration celebration, supported by the community. Since this inception, I’ve traveled
to far-flung parts of the world and witnessed first-hand the desperate need for clean fresh
drinking water for children and their families around the world. I also have clean water
ambassadors that hand-deliver the purification systems to scale our global delivery.
Additionally, I love the arts, especially music and theater by being in the business for over 4
decades. I’m a passionate visionary leader, with a compelling story to tell. The Seattle
Times has written about my water projects helping children around the world several
times. My story has been carried by the wire services around the country. King 5 News has
broadcast stories about my efforts along with NBC Nightly News where they featured my trip
to Bolivia on a water project for children and their families after a Katrina type situation.
I’ve been featured in a KOMO News Heroes Story, My America Fox News out of New York
and I’ve won the American Water Works Association Award.
I’m also in the Bill and Melinda Gates Discovery Center Museum on one of the water solar
units that I designed. I’m in the World Visions Display Museum at their U.S. headquarters.
Amazingly, our water systems are now in over 40 different countries providing clean fresh
drinking water to children around the world. We’ve worked with the Peace Corps,
Starbucks and others putting together water for children projects. In a recent project, we
put water units at the Majesty Garden School in Kingston Jamaica, honoring the great
basketball Hall of Fame Legend Bill Russell and Joe Black who played for the Seattle Super
Sonic’s.
We’re now working with the Hopi and Navajo Reservations in Arizona delivering water units
going into their homes as well as a new water treatment plant. We’re also working with the
Blackfeet Reservation where we just delivered 50 water filters to four schools that will last
them for the next 12 years to ensure they will have fresh clean drinking water. To learn
more about our reservation work, please visit:
https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/water4hopi/
We’re also putting together a water treatment program for El Salvador with our partner
Airline Ambassador’s CEO, Nancy Rivard. We’ve sponsored several water music
fundraisers, such as: Cirque du Soleil at Suite Restaurant & Lounge in Bellevue, WA, Global
Giving/ United Nations Water Day in Beverly Hills, CA, FERGFEST 2023 Water for Children
Around the World Music Festival at Ferguson Ranch in Woodinville, WA, and Water for
Children Fundraiser at Volterra’s Italian Restaurant in Kirkland, WA. We will continue to
sponsor more great events in the future. To learn more about the Clean Water Foundation,
please visit: www.cleanwaterfoundationwa.org and connect with Leon McLaughlin
Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/leon.laughlin
