Thanks to the generous donation of the prototype Feltenberger Pendulum Pump to the One5 Foundation, our volunteers in Haiti will be able to provide the people we serve with clean drinking water day-in and day-out.
Last week, Art Drentlau, senior vice president of Gravitational Energy Corp. of Akron, Ohio, the pump’s manufacturer, was in town to demonstrate how the pump works. He set up the pump at Leawood City Park and showed how the simple movement of a crank and piston could pull water from a pond and filter 1,000 gallons of safe drinking water every hour.
That’s very important because nearly one billion people in the world don’t have access to clean water. The United Nations established March 22 as World Water Day in order to focus attention on the world’s water crisis, as well as solutions to address it.
Now the One5 Foundation will be able to bring clean water to earthquake-ravaged Haiti with the help of the Feltenberger Pendulum Pump. The manually operated pump uses a weighted pendulum to help keep the pumping action going, thus minimizing operator fatigue. It is perfect for use in areas where fuel for motorized pumps is unavailable.
We are extremely grateful to Gravitational Energy for the donation because it also acknowledges the expertise that the One5 Foundation has exhibited during Haiti’s crisis. The pump will be shipped to Haiti by the end of this month. We intend to use the pump at a hospital in Port-au-Prince where we are continuing to provide medical relief.
We encourage other NGOs and charitable groups to sponsor more of these pumps in other areas of the developing world as well as Haiti. It is a clean, quiet and green machine.
Communities cannot pull themselves out of the mire of poverty unless their residents are healthy. Clean drinking water is basic to that.