A birthday campaign created by a child in New York turned small donation requests into support for a water supply system installed thousands of kilometers away.
Exchanging birthday gifts for donations seems like a simple decision, but a campaign created by a six-year-old child in New York ended up funding part of a water supply system in Rwanda.
In 2012, Lawrence Schwartzman, known as Lory, asked family and friends not to buy toys or other gifts.
Instead, each participant could donate $6, an amount chosen in reference to the age he was turning.
-
Pompeii did not disappear as many imagine: archaeologist reveals that thousands escaped the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, exposes the surprising escape plan led by a Roman businesswoman, and challenges one of the greatest myths of ancient history.
-
Harvesting more than 765 million kilograms of grapes and growing about 40% in the year, Brazil’s wine production is expected to reach a record level in the 2025 harvest, with Rio Grande do Sul leading the national harvest.
-
Moving around 12.7 billion reais and growing 8% in the year, the Brazilian gaming market advanced in 2025 and includes more than 103 million players, ranking among the ten largest markets in the world.
-
American sues OpenAI after claiming that ChatGPT Health downplayed symptoms related to a pulmonary embolism
The campaign raised $2,386, a much higher amount than would have been obtained with just small contributions from party guests.
According to charity: water, the mobilization grew after the publication of two videos on YouTube.
The money was allocated to projects for access to clean water in Rwanda.
The organization’s historical page initially reported that 36 people would be benefited, but current records present different numbers depending on the method of accounting.
Today, the campaign profile attributes an estimate of 95 people served to Lory’s fundraising.
Meanwhile, the Kwa Rwigema project page reports that the water system installed in the community reached 114 residents in total.
Birthday campaign was born from a distant problem
Lory decided to organize the fundraising after learning about the routine of families who had to travel long distances to fetch water.
The material released by charity: water explained that, in some communities, residents walked for up to two hours to reach rivers, flooded areas, or other sources that did not always offer safe drinking water.
Besides the time spent traveling, the available quantity had to be divided among basic needs, such as drinking, cooking, bathing, and washing clothes.
The children’s campaign stemmed from this difference between two realities.
While gifts were expected at a birthday party in New York, other families still depended on distant or contaminated sources.
The decision to ask for $6 also facilitated participation.
The amount was low enough to be understood by the guests and maintained a direct connection with the birthday person’s age.
A public list detailing each donation received in that campaign was not found.
The official record, however, confirms that the total reached US$ 2,386 and that the funds were sent to the field.
Two videos expanded the reach of the fundraising
The party did not gather enough guests to explain the amount reached on its own.
According to the historical page of charity: water, two videos published on YouTube helped the campaign circulate beyond family and close friends.
The recordings presented the birthday proposal and allowed other people to learn about Lory’s request.
With this, the initiative no longer depended solely on in-person contributions.
The case occurred before the consolidation of current crowdfunding tools integrated with social networks.
Even so, it used a logic that would become common in digital campaigns: a personal story, a specific goal, and an accessible participation value.
The organization does not maintain, on the consulted page, the direct links to the two original videos.
It was also not possible to safely confirm how many views they accumulated or how long they remained available.
The financial result, however, is recorded in the campaign history, which ended on December 31, 2012.
Project brought clean water to a community in Rwanda
Lory’s fundraising was associated with the Kwa Rwigema project in Rwanda.
According to the charity: water record, the community received a piped system with a distribution point, implemented by the organization Water For People.
In this type of structure, water is conducted through pipes to community taps or points near residences.
The solution reduces the distance traveled by residents and offers a more regular source than rivers, swamps, or other open areas.
The system’s operation depends on local conditions.
Water can be moved by gravity, electricity, solar energy, or a combination of these alternatives.
In the case of Kwa Rwigema, the official page classifies the project as completed and reports serving 114 people.
Lory’s campaign record, in turn, estimates that the amount raised by him corresponded to a portion capable of serving approximately 95 people.
This difference does not necessarily mean that one of the numbers is wrong.
Infrastructure projects can receive resources from more than one campaign, while impact estimates are distributed according to the amount contributed by each fundraiser.
The old information about 36 beneficiaries appears on an archived page published when the works were still in progress.
The current records already present the project as completed and use updated estimates.
Mobilization continued after the sixth anniversary
Lawrence’s official profile shows that the 2012 fundraising was not an isolated action.
On the seventh anniversary, a new campaign raised $400.
At eight, another mobilization reached $1,923 and was associated with a project serving a different community.
In 2019, Lawrence organized a campaign linked to his bar mitzvah, a ceremony of the Jewish tradition.
The initiative raised another $800 and was linked to another supply project.
Combined, the campaigns recorded on the profile show that he continued using personal dates to obtain resources for clean water.
The page does not present recent public information about his life outside these mobilizations.
The history also helps to confirm the child’s identity.
The official source presents the name Lawrence Schwartzman and uses male pronouns when recounting the six-year campaign.
Therefore, although the original title describes a girl, the charity: water’s own record identifies Lory as a boy.
Idea arose on the founder of charity: water’s birthday
The model of turning birthdays into campaigns was part of charity: water’s strategy since the early years of the entity.
On September 9, 2006, founder Scott Harrison organized a party to celebrate his 31st birthday and the launch of the organization.
Guests paid $20 to enter, and the event raised $15,000.
According to the institutional account, the resources were sent to a refugee camp in northern Uganda.
The money helped build three wells and restore three others in an area with thousands of displaced families.
From this experience, the entity began encouraging other people to forgo gifts and use birthdays as starting points for fundraisers.
At the time Lory’s story was shared, the organization reported that about 17,000 people had already created birthday campaigns, with nearly $9 million raised.
These numbers belong to historical material and should not be presented as current data of the entity.
The consulted page does not inform the exact date when this count was recorded.
Lack of safe water remains a global problem
Although the campaign started in 2012, the problem that motivated the initiative remains far from a global solution.
Data released by the World Health Organization and UNICEF in 2025 indicate that 2.1 billion people still did not have access to safely managed drinking water services.
Of this total, about 106 million consumed water directly from rivers, lakes, or other untreated surface sources.
The definition of safely managed service involves more than the existence of a source.
The water needs to come from an improved facility, be available when needed, be close to or within the residence, and not present significant contamination.
Between 2000 and 2024, approximately 2.2 billion people gained access to this level of service.
Despite the progress, coverage remains unequal between urban areas, rural regions, and countries with different income levels.
For this reason, Lory’s story continues to circulate as an example of a small campaign that connected to an issue of infrastructure, health, and development.
The amount raised did not solve the water problem in Rwanda alone, nor did it solely finance the entire structure of Kwa Rwigema.
Even so, official records indicate that the donation was incorporated into a completed project and associated with serving the community’s residents.
By giving up gifts, Lory turned a personal date into a fundraising effort that crossed borders and continued to be recorded more than a decade later.
