Rawcliffe to host road race to support clean drinking water

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Growing up in Maine, MacKenzie Rawcliffe admits, it was easy to overlook a problem that plagues people in many parts of the world.

Clean water, after all, can be found just about everywhere … as long as you’re here.

“It seems like something I take for granted,” Rawcliffe said. “I drink out of the tap and we have clean water all over the place in Maine, but not having clean water somewhere can really just doom a country.”

On June 9, Rawcliffe is hoping more people will pause to consider life without clean water and do something about it.

The 2003 Hampden Academy grad, who also recently graduated from Tufts University, will hold a 3.1-mile road race in her native Winterport to raise money for a cause she’s come to embrace.

The impetus for the run was a Tufts speech by Jin Zidell, the founder of the Blue Planet Run.

The actual Blue Planet Run is an around-the-world relay that will begin in New York City on Friday.

Rawcliffe, who majored in international relations and had a minor in media studies at Tufts, told Zidell she thought she could spread the word in her own corner of the world, and proposed a satellite run in Winterport. She says Zidell enthusiastically supported the idea.

In a news release, he describes the inaugural Blue Planet Run as a chance to “literally deliver the message of safe drinking water around the globe, through some of the world’s most rugged terrain, to reach communities in need while educating people about how they can help make a difference.”

Rawcliffe is no stranger to the world of running: She was a standout track athlete at Hampden Academy and also participated in cross country during high school. She ran track at Tufts as well.

She hopes her background, along with contacts in the running community, will make the race a success … although she’s reluctant to guess how many runners will show up.

“I ordered 70-something T-shirts, so if I got rid of all of my T-shirts, that would be good,” she said. “I don’t have any really high expectations, just because I know for even a really well-established race you might still only get about 200 runners.”

Registration begins in Abbott Park at 9 a.m., and the race starts at 10. The entry fee is $15, but those who choose to pay $25 will also get a T-shirt.

The $25 fee is symbolic, Rawcliffe pointed out: That’s the estimated cost of providing clean water to one person for life.

Rawcliffe said the world’s water problems became clearer to her while studying abroad in Oaxaca, Mexico, and traveling with her father on a research trip to Kenya.

“It was so crazy being in Mexico, because I was staying in a middle-class household, but there was still this guy who went by every morning [calling] ‘Agua! Agua!'” Rawcliffle said. “They had those big five-gallon jugs and everybody would go out and buy their water because they couldn’t drink their own water.”

In Kenya, she said the things her mother thought would bother her – unfamiliar food, rudimentary toilets, and the like – didn’t. But learning that during extreme drought periods the Masai had to herd their cows 50 to 100 miles just to find water left a powerful impression.

“They just don’t have the infrastructure and the state can’t provide the infrastructure to get water to people,” Rawcliffe said.

That’s far different from the situation in Maine, where it’s hard to drive five miles without crossing a stream or river, or without detouring around a pond or lake.

Here, that abundance of water not only sustains us, but also provides plenty of recreational opportunities as well.

The road race is adding one more activity to a busy schedule for Rawcliffe, who has accepted a fellowship to the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, D.C., and will depart (briefly) for the nation’s capital this weekend.

On Thursday she’ll return to make final preparations for the race, and the day after the race, after watching her sister graduate from high school, she’ll head back to Washington.

That busy schedule doesn’t bother Rawcliffe, however. She said that following through on her idea of holding a race for a cause she believes in is important.

“I’ve had a lot of ideas like that, where you’re like, ‘There’s a good idea. I could probably do that.’ And then you just don’t do it,” Rawcliffe said. “So I look at this as kind of like a final for myself as I’m graduating from college. Can I put something like this together?”

She seems well on her way to succeeding: A sponsorship with Poland Spring has defrayed costs and assured that Blue Planet Run will receive the money raised.

She also knows her family and friends will help take care of various race-day chores.

And she’s confident that any money she raises will be used to provide real-world solutions to a massive problem.

“I’ve read enough to know that the best intentions and the best-intentioned projects sometimes backfire completely,” she said. “You see [problems you want to address], but you’re not sure what to do.”

In this case, she thinks she’s got a pretty good idea: Get Blue Planet involved and let them put the money to work.

“There’s a right solution, and we’re going to figure it out,” she said.

John Holyoke can be reached at jholyoke@bangordailynews.net or by calling 990-8214 or 1-800-310-8600.