“603Kmsforhope”: Teen ‘Rides’ Indigenous Water Issues To Light
Written by Paul Graif on 28 August 2020
Zach Stabb was tabbed with a school project in his senior year: to do something to try and make a positive impact on society. After contemplating the lack of access to clean water in Africa, Stabb decided to focus his attention on matters closer to home: the water crisis in First Nation and Indigenous communities.
In a story first run on mykawartha.com written by Angela Lavallee, Stabb discusses his cycling mission that will take him from Montreal to Toronto raising money for the Waterfirst project:
“I’ve been researching this for a while and from the beginning of this project it’s been a really big thing for my school, so it had to be something that was thoroughly thought through, time and time and it last a year, so I wanted to do some sort of issues that arose in our own country, so to me that was close to home. I found this water crisis that I didn’t know existed, so I did some further research into it and it was just a shock to me really that something like this could exist in a social country like Canada where people are living in 3rd world conditions or worse.”
Stabb decided to find his place in the process of raising awareness for the cause of clean water in Indigenous communities:
“I decided to to take it under my wing and try to be a good guy and try to solve this issue and at least play my part in raising awareness and raising funds for it because it’s something that is very disturbing that it exists in our country still with all this time and all the resources and means that we have to get rid of issues like this, I just wanted to play my part just to raise awareness and to put pressure on people to do something about it aas quickly and as well as they can.”
Stabb is fundraising for a very specific charity assisting communities who are always under a boiling water advisory:
“I’m actually fundraising for a fundraising charity called WaterFirst, they’re based in Ontario. They focus completely their efforts on providing relief to these communities that are under boil water advisories like this, so they’ve been incredibly helpful this whole time and I really believe in what they’re mission is to eradicate this problem for good. They’ve done tremendous work in that field, they’ve been super supportive this whole time and i’m really thankful for them and I really believe in their initiative.”
John Millar is the Executive Director at Water First. Millar is impressed with Zach’s campaign:
“Very surprised, absolutely, particularly how sophisticated his campaign has been. It seems well run, organized, press releases, he’s been very effective and perhaps he has some support helping him along the way or if he’s done it all alone it’s incredible what he’s pulling off.”
From St-Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal to the CN Tower in Toronto, 16 year old Stabb’s cycling journey is an effort to try his best to raise awareness and funds, a 603 KM Journey that wraps on Saturday, August 29th.
