Entomology Former Students Look to ‘Refresh’ Water for South Texas Colonias
Microscopes like the one pictured above can help make a difference in the lives of people living near the Texas-Mexico border. Photo by Kristie Reddick.
A truck picking up potable water near a border town in South Texas. Photo submitted by Solpugid Productions
Jess Honaker and Kristie Reddick reading over a script.
Three former Texas A&M Entomology students need your help in getting their project funded to help border towns near Texas and Mexico to improve water quality and quality of life.
Every day throughout August, Solpugid Productions members Kristie Reddick, Jessica Honaker and former student Brendan Morris urge your vote on their project to help Texas border towns receive microscopes for testing water sources. Reddick and Honaker are the creative team behind the Department of Entomology’s Bug Bytes podcast.
The three are vying with thousands of other project ideas to become the top 10 in the Pepsi Refresh Project’s $50,000 category. The project is vote dependent and voting is every day until August 31.
Pepsi is picking the top ideas from everyone around the world in categories including arts and culture, food and shelter, The Planet, Education, Health and neighborhoods. The top 10 awardees each month will receive up to $50,000 in grant funding while the top 2 will receive $250,000.
Reddick and Honaker have submitted a project to help people living in the colonias, a group of 2,400 small communities near the Texas-Mexico border. They will purchase and distribute microscopes to help with water testing to improve water quality. The goal is to keep their water sources from harmful pathogens that lead to disease.
Residents in the colonias are made up of around 85-90 percent American citizens and have little to no access to clean water sources and adequate sewage infrastructure. The microscopes would allow the community centers to be better equipped to test water samples.
In partnership with the Texas Water Project, the project will distribute microscopes to each of the 40 community centers in the region and will educate the center directors on proper use and maintenance of the microscopes. There also will be a bilingual curricula, as well as microscope teaching kits to educate the public and support visiting health providers that use the centers.
Honaker and Reddick have been interested in microscope outreach for several years and they said that it would be a great opportunity to help someone closer to home. Texas A&M community centers already established in the colonias would provide what they would need to begin a water testing program.
“Infrastructure is so important when you’re trying to succeed in implementing a program,” Reddick said.
Reddick said former student Brendan Morris was instrumental in the conception and was excited about submitting the project.
“As a company we'd like to use science on the ground to help with social problems. Helping people to see that it's the water that is contaminated and causing illness is a vital step,” she said. “Jess, Brendan and I are so excited to have this opportunity and we really need votes!”
Voting ends on August 31. You can vote each day. For more information about the project or to vote, visit the Texas Microscope Project website at http://www.refresheverything.com/texasmicroscopeproject/.