Cate Brown '18 Partners with Nonprofit to Organize 5K
In the summer before her junior year, avid volunteer Cate Brown ’18 was looking for a way to continue to engage in service through her summer vacation. Her quest brought her to Rustic Pathways, a program that organizes service trips for high school students. In June 2017, Brown, along with a group of volunteers, headed to Tanzania to research and implement ways to positively impact the environment and surrounding Tanzanian communities, including Moshi and Makiba.During her trip, Brown was struck by Tanzania’s water crisis, as students her age in Tanzania were forced to place a priority on collecting water over education; some traveling miles to contaminated water sources. Her program connected her to the Jane Goodall Institute in Moshi, Tanzania. Through the Institute, she had the opportunity to join the students on one of their treks to learn firsthand how difficult it was to collect water. “I learned that the water crisis does not choose a victim,” said Brown. “It could impact anyone, anywhere, if there was a lack of infrastructure and resources.”
When Brown returned to Newton Country Day in the fall, she studied Advanced Placement Environmental Science (APES) with science teacher Brett Schusterbauer. APES is a college level course taught by Schusterbauer and fellow science teacher Lisa Paul that allows juniors and seniors to study natural systems, resource allocation, and human impact, as well as to explore and propose solutions for environmental issues in their community, their state, their country, and around the world. Brown’s experience in Tanzania made the concepts presented in class that much more meaningful and relevant.
Enlisting the help of her APES classmates and fellow volunteers, Brown launched Miles to Maji (“water” in Swahili) in collaboration with Save The Rain, a nonprofit that educates communities on how to build and utilize water collection systems. Now entering its third year, Miles to Maji is a 5K Run/Water Walk in which individuals participating carry buckets filled with water through the course. Last year, Miles to Maji events took place in San Diego, California, West Palm Beach, Florida, and Boston, raising a total of $20,000 for Makiba, one of the villages of most need in Tanzania. That money has been designated to help provide access to clean water and plant sustainable gardens.
Last April, Miles To Maji held its second annual Boston event, raising $7,000. With the total money raised from this year and last year’s events, along with money raised by a Montessori school in the south, Save The Rain has fully funded a school water system in Tanzania. Miles to Maji is currently working to expand into other schools and groups across America.
Brown credits her participation in Model UN for helping her to find the confidence to bring the story to her classmates, teachers, and the NCDS community. She also notes that her participation in the service committee shaped her desire to make an impact on the lives of others. “With the committee I volunteered at Christmas in the City and Sophie's Place. Outside of NCDS I also do a lot of work with the children at my church, and I also went to Common Cathedral, an outdoor church for people experiencing homelessness, with them.” And Brown appreciates how Sacred Heart Goal Three: a social awareness that impels to action, encourages people in the Sacred Heart Network Schools to actively help others. “The message of the goal is very powerful.”