Put Down Your Phone and Armani will Donate Drinking Water to Needy Kids

I’m a big Red Sox fan. As such, I follow Sox slugger David Ortiz on Twitter. Yesterday Big Papi posted the following message:

10 min w/o your phone will give a child in need clean water for a day. Take the @unicefusa #tapproject challenge https://t.co/MVjs75MLaS

— David Ortiz (@davidortiz) March 10, 2014

Naturally, I was intrigued. So I visited UNICEF’s website and found some details about its Tap Project, which aims to collect funds to help provide clean drinking water for the world’s needy children.

From UNICEF:

“For every 10 minutes you don’t touch your phone, our sponsors and donors will make a donation to support the UNICEF Tap Project based on the time you went without your phone.”

Those “sponsors and donors?” Giorgio Armani Fragrances and UNICEF Next Generation, “a diverse group of young professionals, aged 21 to 40, who share a commitment to UNICEF’s future.”

The organization set up a website that you can visit using your smartphone to track just how long you can go without touching your device. For every minute you abstain, both Armani and UNICEF Next Generation with donate $0.025 to the cause — up to $75,000 from Armani, and up to $100,000 from Next Generation.  It costs $0.025 a day to provide one child with safe water for one day, according to UNICEF.

That’s a solid reason to put down your phone. So why not head on over to UNICEFTapProject.org with your mobile device, put down it for a bit and make Armani give UNICEF some scratch for clean drinking water? If you’ve got some of your own cash to spare, UNICEF makes it simple to make an additional donation.

AS