Rachel Beckwith Tops $1 Million For Charity:Water (UPDATE)

Updated Aug. 12, 3:56 p.m.

Rachel Beckwith didn’t live to see her birthday wish, but more than 50,000 people in need of clean water will, now that her campaign has hit $1,011,936 and counting.

When Rachel died on July 23 from injuries she sustained in a car crash, she had raised $220 for charity:water, a nonprofit that brings potable water to developing countries. The Bellevue, Wash. girl had decided to celebrate her birthday with the fundraiser instead of getting gifts, but fell $80 short of a goal that would’ve helped 15 people in need.

After Rachel passed away though, her mission was revived and amplified by thousands of complete strangers who have made Rachel’s campaign, charity:water’s largest in history.

“I’m just blown away by the overwhelming love and support and response that we’ve gotten from it,” Rachel’s mother, Samantha Paul, shared on the CBS Early Show Monday. “It’s overwhelming.”

Paul met founder and CEO of charity:water, Scott Harrison, for the first time Monday and the two expressed their commitment to keeping Rachel’s legacy alive.

“Lives are being transformed through this little girl’s selflessness,” Harrison remarked. He offered to take Rachel’s mom to Africa to meet those very people her daughter has impacted.

“I’ve always been so unbelievably proud of her, of the choices she’s made throughout her life,” Paul shared. “I’m just glad that everyone can share in the ‘Rachel experience’ now.”

WATCH:

Comments

[Ccrafty1]

10:42 PM on 08/03/2011

This is the kind of help and giving we should be talking about, not the sad and hate filled politics. If we are to improve the economy it won't be politicans that do it. It will be all of us who care coming together to help and support one another. What are we all waiting for....lets do it!

[Janice S Silver]

10:13 PM on 08/03/2011

Did anyone check out the Waves for Water system that Pam Anderson promoted on the Ellen Degeneres show? Give a man a fish he eats for a day. Teach him to fish he eats for a lifetime. Give people water they have water til they run out. Give them these filters they can make their own clean water and this program can help sustain the supplies.

[Richcrafter]

09:28 PM on 08/03/2011

Beyond wow.

[Barry Neunzig]

07:37 PM on 08/03/2011

I think the little girl wanted to do something good for others..That is a great Plan...But that Plan was started over one hundred years ago and has been funded by the American Tax Payer ever since.....And still, they need help....Someone is doing something terribly wrong when you work on a "Problem" for over 100 years and the problem still exists.......Politicians NEVER FIX a Problem....They just talk about it and take money from you to fix it....While fixing nothing...

[keglera22]

10:31 PM on 08/03/2011

You got that right

[Philament]

01:56 AM on 08/05/2011

What is wrong with you??
a.) there is no political nexus in this story so your comment is kind of weird;
b.) exactly which 100 year Plan funded by the American Tax Payer are you refering to (?) - also this story is about donations not taxes; &
c.) the fact that poverty and a lack of clean water continues through time on Planet Earth is the result of a complex interaction of continuously evolving factors (environmental, demographic, economic, sociological, etc) mostly unique to each place. Nevertheless there are good people saving real lives and generating measurable and positive effects who thankfully do not share your defeatism in the face of a persistant problem.

Anyway, Rachel was awesome and so is clean water!

[imlogansmom]

06:53 PM on 08/03/2011

I'm so very sorry for her family...and for us.

[vietnamvet1967]

06:42 PM on 08/03/2011

We know she is in HEAVEN, And is one of GOD'S Angels

[Westies]

06:27 PM on 08/03/2011

Geez, that's so sad.....

[oceanview136]

05:57 PM on 08/03/2011

A little girl, with a tremendously BIG heart !!

[Betty A Leverence]

05:16 PM on 08/03/2011

She must have been an Angel sent to do just this tremondous deed. God Bless her and her family who must have been chosen by Our Lord to be the parents of this couragous girl.

[Kathy Burns]

02:47 PM on 08/03/2011

And a little child shall lead them.

[icdedadams]

05:13 PM on 08/03/2011

Amen.