From Green Right Now Reports
Live Earth today announced a series of concerts in April as part of the Dow Live Earth Run for Water to raise awareness and funds to help solve the global water crisis. Melissa Etheridge will headline the event in Los Angeles and Rob Thomas will perform in Atlanta.
Organizers said the events will take place in nearly 100 cities across 50 countries around the world on April 18. Additional artists will be announced for events in Chicago, Minneapolis, and New York.
Dow Live Earth Run for Water will include a 6km run/walk (the average distance many women and children walk every day to get water), along with a water education village and other live musical performances.
Etheridge, who won an Academy Award winner for Best Song for the Al Gore documentary An Inconvenient Truth, said she believes “strongly that it is our duty as a society and as individuals to preserve our planet and its resources.”
“I want to lend my name and time to this event because the global water crisis is an environmental issue that affects nearly one billion people on the planet and through this event we can raise awareness and money to help address it,” Etheridge said in a statement.
Funds raised from the events will benefit Global Water Challenge, a coalition of non profit organizations working to bring clean, safe drinking water to millions of people worldwide, including projects that provide clean drinking water to communities in Haiti, Central America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia.
Live Earth said that beginning today it will donate $1 for each U.S. registration received through March 23 for a special Haiti relief fund through GWC coalition partners CARE, Catholic Relief Services, Population Services, and UNICEF to implement safe drinking water programs on the ground in Haiti. People interested in supporting the Haiti relief fund should register for a Dow Live Earth Run for Water run/walk event in the U.S. before March 23, using promotional code HAITI.
The Los Angeles Dow Live Earth Run for Water event will be held in Exposition Park, near downtown Los Angeles, with the 6km course starting on Exposition Park Drive, turning onto Figueroa and traveling three kilometers toward downtown, turning around at 17th Street for the return three kilometers, and ending in the Water Village in Expo Park. Starting time for the run is 8:30 a.m.