A project led by a former Scottsdale high school student will help farmers and gardeners cultivate crops in South Phoenix by providing them with clean drinking water.

Haley Holmes’ Girl Scout Gold Award effort recently received a $25,000 grant from the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona Foundation for Community & Health Advancement.

Called Water Works, the project will bring clean drinking water to the farmers and gardeners cultivating crops in south Phoenix, according to a release.

Water Works was designed to help “underserved communities gain greater access to clean water, healthy food and an active lifestyle,” the release stated.

Holmes, 18, who now is in school in California, was in the Scottsdale Unified School District in 2020-21, reporting to the online learning principal.

She was the first senator to serve on the SUSD Advisory Board for Scottsdale Online Learning, representing a study body of more than 1,400, the release stated.

Water Works will use the grant to “collaborate with like-minded community partners to provide safe, sustainable drinking water at the Spaces of Opportunity community gardens in south Phoenix, which do not have easy access to a source of drinking water for the farmers who are working the land,” the release stated.

To accomplish the goal, SOURCE Hydropanels, “a first-of-its-kind, sustainable technology, will make high-quality drinking water from sunlight and air,” project officials said in the release.

The project will provide up to 10 gallons of clean drinking water every day to the farmers and gardeners at the community gardens for the next 15 years.

A ribbon cutting for the project featuring a “water farm” of SOURCE Hydropanels took place last month.

The Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona Foundation for Community & Health Advancement “invests in the health of Arizona by tackling mental health, substance use disorder, chronic health conditions and health equity,” foundation officials said in the release.

For more: www.azbluefoundation.org

For more on SOURCE: www.source.co