In 2001 Jerry Bohl met Father Daniel Sanchez Barbero, then the priest at Mary, Mother of the Poor Church in San Salvadore. What came of that meeting is another (beautiful) story, but the point of this blog is to inform you of the effectiveness of the system we provide. A part of the outcome of their meeting was that Jerry provided Father Daniel with the first system of the type we provide. Father Daniel and Father Luis Salazar, the current parish priest, are in Kalamazoo to take part in the ceramonies and festivities surrounding the opening of the new St Thomas Mores facility. St Toms and Mary, Mother of the Poor are sister parishes. I asked Father Daniel about it's effectiveness, what changes it had brought. He explained that the system was still working fine, that and the 3 that have since been installed to serve this large community. He noted that the most noticeable physical impact on the community was that the children at the school no longer complained about belly aches. They were no longer affected by the parasites and bacteria that came from their water source. Diarrhea and Dysentery were no longer a problem. Father Luis confirmed this. The water comes from the Rio Lempa river, which doubles as a sewer in some places. There is a national agency responsible for delivering the water and they do chlorinate it...occasionally. At any given time one has no idea what is in the water. Father Luis is thankful they have the systems providing safe clean water to the community served by the parish. Both Father Daniel and Father Luis promised to help us identify sites that could benefit from our water purification system.
