This year's World Water Day 2019 theme was "Leaving No One Behind" and took place Friday, March 22. To bring awareness to the cause, the Center for Leadership and Service (CLS) held tabling events.

The first tabling took place Tuesday, March 5 which focused on the theme for the year. The tabling was decked out with water related facts to give people an idea of how much society depends on water and how much is wasted. Some of these facts included:

• The average American family uses more than 60 jugs of water (300 gallons) per day
• It takes more than 40 jugs (2,400 gallons) of water to produce one pound of meat
• To produce jeans takes 2,108 gallons of water
• To produce t-shirt takes 659 gallons

These facts were put out with a representation of articles of clothing and jugs of water to show an impactful visual with the message.

There was also a flyer produced by Rainbow International Restoration on five ways people could conserve water in their kitchen. These tips were as follows:

• Use a dishwasher instead of washing dishes by hand. A dishwasher uses less water and can save up to 1,000 gallons a month
• To wash a couple of dishes, turn off the water except when rinsing. To conserve more water, soak dishes in a mixture of soap and water
• Use reusable bottles
• Wash fruits and vegetables in a bowl of water as opposed to running water over them. One should defrost food in the fridge rather than with running water, as it will conserve water.
• Dropped ice cubes and water used to wash fruits or vegetables can be used to water houseplants

A second tabling occurred Thursday, April 4. This tabling featured interactive games and activities for students to practice their water use knowledge.The activities were based off statistics on how much water is used for everyday use and students were able to guess the stats for a chance to win candy. Many students were surprised by how much more water is used, which was more than they had anticipated. Flyers were also given out for advice on how to conserve water on and off campus.

These tablings were headed by Service Specialist Kristin Failla.

"I think [World Water day] is important because [water] is something we take for granted and, although it should be a right, it isn't for everyone. There's a lot of people out there who just don't have access to clean water... they just can't bathe in clean water and they don't have access to drinking water; they have to go through a whole process [to get water]," said Failla. "It's definitely an important issue and if we're able to save how much water we use we can end up helping those people."