An Artist’s Thirst-Quenching Gift  

Chelsea Dziedzic knows it sounds somewhat unbelievable that Seattle students in 2024 wouldn’t have access to clean drinking water at school.

But that’s exactly an issue faced until recently by students at Lowell Elementary School, a Title 1 school near to downtown where students lacked access to clean, cold and accessible water at any of the building’s drinking fountains. That situation has now changed, after a One Roof Foundation initiative in conjunction with two December concerts at Climate Pledge Arena by singer and songwriter Billie Eilish, helped install three water filling stations at the school and provided reusable water bottles for all students.

“Parts of our building are over 100 years old,” Dziedzic said. “But the majority of the building is at least 60. And a lot of our drinking fountains and our pipes are getting old. Therefore, kids really were not accessing drinking water.”

Enter ORF and Eilish, a longtime environmental activist who offered to forgo her customary “artist gift” for playing at Climate Pledge so the money could be spent on a worthy cause. Climate Pledge vice president (marketing) Rosie Selle contacted ORF, the non-profit community arm of both the arena and the Kraken, to see whether they knew of a group that could benefit from a project borne of Eilish’s unused gift money.

ORF reached out to non-profit partners and were told of the Lowell Elementary water situation.

“It seemed like an obvious fit for what we were trying to do, what Billie Eilish cares about and also what Climate Pledge Arena is trying to do with our focus on sustainability,” said ORF executive director Mari Horita, whose group provided additional funds for the project.

Horita said the lack of water was an issue that qualified for funding under ORF’s environmental justice pillar, given many of Lowell Elementary’s students are from lower-income families. They often face housing insecurity and lack access to clean water not only at school but also where they lived.

“Some of our students live in their car and their families live in the car,” said Antonia Gray, assistant principal at Lowell. “So, them having clean drinking water in school and then also being able to take it home or to where they were living at the time is a benefit for them.”

Gray said it’s important for young students to learn the difference between hydrating with water as opposed to milk or soda.

“This is teaching them how to take care of their bodies,” she said.

During a ORF visit to the school, more than 100 students were given branded ORF/CPA/Lowell Elementary reusable water bottles. The students staged an assembly in the school’s auditorium and recorded a video thanking ORF and Eilish for the donation. They also created giant thank you cards.

Eilish will be shown both ahead of her Dec. 5 and 6 concerts.

Two days after the ORF school visit, Lowell Elementary students were given a sustainability tour of Climate Pledge, where they were told of the environmental betterment efforts the venue has made.

“It was just exciting to think about how we could work together,” school principal Dziedzic said. “And dream outside of the box in terms of updating our drinking fountains and ensuring that at least there was one drinking fountain that students and staff could use on each floor of the building.”