Avid surfer Adrian Scavone of Pacific Beach Middle School selected a familiar subject for his eighth-grade project: water.
Scavone, who’s on a surf team traveling throughout Southern California, has chosen to raise funds via GoFundMe.com and other sources to generate the $4,000 needed to have a state-of-the-art Flowater refill station installed on the middle-school campus at 4674 Ingraham St.
FloWater Refill Stations hold seven gallons of purified water, at all times available on-demand, which fills a 24-oz. bottle in 9 seconds (45 seconds faster than the average water dispenser).The large fill area and recessed dispense nozzle means anything from a coffee mug to a gallon jug can be filled under the dispenser.
Of his motivation, Scavone said: “I really have a passion for the ocean and it really makes me sad to see all the litter going into it, and most of that is plastic water bottles. So I was thinking, ‘How can I contribute to getting rid of it?’”
Scavone’s mom, Leslie, suggested the refill station. “I thought that was a really good idea,” he said noting it was also doable.
Thus far, Scavone said his water-purification project, which takes regular water and filters and cleanses it, has been an easy sell. “A lot of the kids here really don’t like the water fountains, would prefer clean, cold water,” he said.
Jennifer Sims, PBMS international Baccalaureate coordinator, noted there was a $500 grant available to use as seed money for Scavone’s required eighth-grade project for promotion to the next grade level.
“Every eighth grader has to come up with their own project, in teams of three or less, which they will present,” Sims said, adding there will be 80 to 100 student projects presented to community members in April, and then again in May to a panel judging them and awarding medals to winners.
“It’s really [PB Middle’s] test to have the kids be able to do something like this on a big scale,” said Sims, adding, “Last year, our students donated more than 16,000 course of service to the community.”
Fundraising for Scavone’s water purification project is going well.
“We raised $1,150 in one week toward the total $4,000 cost (after the 50 percent school discount) for the Flowater system,” Scavone said.
Flowater has already been installed successfully elsewhere in the San Diego Unified School District, and has been successful in lowering single-use plastic waste.