A collection of all variety of coins and paper money – from pennies and quarters to $1 bills and the occasional $20 – all added up to over $450 raised in an effort to provide clean drinking water for children in Peru.

The mission project for this past summer’s Escalon Christian Reformed Church Vacation Bible School was Clean Water for Peru, and Worship Coordinator and Education Director Heidi Veldstra reported that when all the coins and bills were counted, the final total was one that will ultimately do a lot of good.

“We raised a total of $450.74, which is enough to provide 90 kids in Peru with clean water for a year,” Veldstra said. “This is done through the two partnering organizations, Group Cares and Living Water.”

Every $5 raised is enough to provide water for one child in Peru for a full year.

Each day during the weeklong VBS, hosted at the church in mid-July, kids brought in donations from home and added it to the clear tube on the ‘Clean Water for Peru’ board. As they dropped their donations in the tube, they could watch the money level rise, much the same as a water level rises. Also included on the board was information about the need for providing clean water.

Information shared with the kids included facts like much of the drinking water in Peru comes from the same streams used for bathing, reducing sanitation and safety levels. Only 69 percent of the people in rural Peru have safe drinking water; that level drops to 30 percent in the most remote areas of the country.

Veldstra said officials were very pleased with the collection effort and excited about the good the funds will do for the children.