As a humanitarian worker and Christian, I find it difficult to accept how popular media views charity. I knew what my faith teaches about charity and love but I have difficulty translating it to a medium people who ask me could understand. Then I knew about this man's story of his 30th birthday, and how everything else found its meaning and form in his advocacy. To Scott, the campaign for the right to water is actually a call to Christian charity.
"For me, charity is practical. It's sometimes easy, more often inconvenient, but always necessary. It's the ability to use one's position of influence, relative wealth and power to affect lives for the better. charity is singular and achievable.
There's a biblical parable about a man beaten near death by robbers. He's stripped naked and lying roadside. Most people pass him by, but one man stops. He picks him up and bandages his wounds. He puts him on his horse and walks alongside until they reach an inn. He checks him in and throws down his Amex. "Whatever he needs until he gets better."
Because he could.
The dictionary defines charity as simply the act of giving voluntarily to those in need. It's taken from the word "caritas," or simply, love. In Colossians 3, the Bible instructs readers to "put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness."
Although I'm still not sure what that means, I love the idea. To wear charity."
-Scott Harrison
top nightclubs and fashion endorser, founder of water:charity, an NGO based in New York providing access to water and sanitation around the globe. To find more about him and his team's work, check http://www.charitywater.org/about/scotts_story.php
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