It all started with what Chris Rich called one of those "looking off into the pine trees" moments.
The 20-year-old Truett-McConnell College student was determined to make Americans understand the difficulties people in other countries have in acquiring clean drinking water. His older brother, Jonathan, had done something similar in the music world, selling albums where all of his sales went directly to buying clean drinking water for people via a New York-based advocacy group called "charity: water."
So last year Rich decided to follow in his sibling's footsteps, devising a plan to walk in the 2011 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Peachtree Road Race with a five-gallon jug of water starting at the halfway point. And when he crossed the finish line last year, he knew his work was just beginning.
"It was a total spiritual moment," he said. "God put it on my heart that, 'You've got to start working for these people.'"
With that, he embarked on a far more ambitious plan for this year's race: to have as many people as he could find join him in carrying the five-gallon, water-filled jugs. One of those people was Brooke Oliver, a 27-year-old forensic scientist from Decatur who heard Rich speak about the cause at her church. The avid runner said she would have participated in the Peachtree regardless, but Rich's passion drew her into participating with the group, dubbed "A Village For A Village," which welcomes all public donations and sends it along to "charity: water" to further its mission.
"Christopher caught my attention because of the heart behind it," she said. "It really makes you think about what somebody on the other side of the world is going through every single day, and [sometimes] not even for clean water."
But another person even closer to Rich joined him for the walk Wednesday — his older brother. Jonathan was unable to take part in the Peachtree last year because of an autoimmune disorder that causes his knee to swell and makes running painful. He didn't let that stop him, though.
"Last year was worse than this year," Jonathan said. "I didn't have the stamina to do it, but I was going to suck it up this year."
The Rich brothers and Oliver were three of approximately 50 group members in this year's Peachtree. Chris Rich originally set 250 as the goal, which coincides with what he considers an "average" number of people in a village. After the race, he realized how short-sighted his numerically driven notion was.
"My goal for the beginning of it was probably wrong," he said. "I was numbers, numbers, numbers, when in reality, quality beats quantity any time. This is probably as many quality people as I could ask for."
Both brothers said they plan to walk with the water-filled jugs "as long as they can, and hope to see it continue to grow in notoriety and number. Eventually, the two would like to see it spread from the Peachtree to the Southeast and beyond. But no matter how large the scope may become, one core tenet will remain forever.
"Giving people water is the most simple, basic way to help the world," Rich said.
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