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Zusammenfassung von Thirst

Name: Thirst
Rating: 4.5 (18 reviews)
Author: Scott Harrison

Scott Harrison

A Story of Redemption, Compassion, and a Mission to Bring Clean Water to the World

4.5 (18 Bewertungen)

29 Min.

Kurz zusammengefasst

Thirst by Scott Harrison is a memoir that follows the journey of a club promoter turned humanitarian. After discovering the power of helping those in need, he creates charity Water to end the world's water crisis. A must-read for anyone wanting to make a positive impact.

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What’s in it for me? Go deep into the inspirational story behind the CEO of one of the world’s biggest charities.

Scott Harrison’s organization, charity: water, has been around since 2006, so there’s a good chance you may have heard about it, read about it or even made a donation to help it bring clean water to those in need. Even Barack Obama gave charity: water a shout-out at one point, calling Scott Harrison’s transformation from party promoter to humanitarian “the kind of promoting we need more of.”

Indeed, much has been written about Harrison’s unlikely transition from the posh nightclubs of New York City to isolated villages in Africa. But now it’s time to hear the story in Harrison’s own words, to find out how it all started and how his ambitious idea transformed into what Harrison has called “a global movement of compassion.”

In these blinks, you’ll find

which book helped reconnect Harrison with his faith;
the heartbreak behind the biggest donor campaign; and
the tragic suicide that reaffirmed Harrison’s commitment to his cause.

Scott Harrison had an unusual childhood, with a mother prone to sickness.

Scott Harrison was born in New Jersey in 1975, and as far back as he can remember, he’s had a restless drive to get things done. This energetic nature may even have saved his life early on when his childhood home had a carbon monoxide leak that nearly killed his mom.

Since he was always outside playing, and his father was at work, it was only his mom who suffered the effects of the scentless, airborne toxin – though it would take a year of recurring symptoms, such as dizziness, nausea and passing out, before the source of his mom’s troubles were identified. Yet, once the leak from the home’s heating system was found, Scott’s childhood only got more unusual.

The carbon monoxide leak caused the Harrisons to move, but no matter where they went, his mom would feel sick from the slightest scents. Strong smells like onions, hairspray and pipe smoke weren’t the only offenders – even someone’s makeup could be too much. Sometimes the family would drive out in the middle of the night to find a spot in the countryside where she could get some relief. One night, the smell of car exhaust from a nearby highway was too much, so they ended up sleeping on hay in a barn.

As a young boy, unusual excursions like this were actually quite fun for Scott, like camping out. But as he became a teenager, his mother’s illnesses became more of a burden for a kid who just wanted a normal adolescence.

Scott’s mom also became sensitive to any electromagnetic radiation in the air, so there was no TV or radio in the house, on top of there being no gas oven. Plus, a local doctor also diagnosed her as allergic to most foods.

Then there was the issue of his schooling. Not long after Scott was born, the Harrisons became a very religious family, so Scott was enrolled in a small Christian school with five classrooms that held around nine students each. It was called the New Life Christian School, and Scott hated it so much he told his parents, in no uncertain terms, that he was going to go to public school instead.

So, in 1991, 16-year-old Scott suddenly found himself the new kid at a much bigger high school. Fortunately for him, he had one skill that helped him make friends: he knew how to play piano.

With an early interest in music, Scott eventually entered the New York City nightlife scene.

Since he was around six years old, Scott had been playing the piano, starting with an old pump organ belonging to his grandparents. Looking to make friends at his new school, Scott responded to a flyer from a band looking for a keyboard player, and soon enough he was a member of Sunday River.

It being the early 1990s, Sunday River sounded like a cross between Pearl Jam and Counting Crows, yet they were good enough to start getting gigs and even recorded a demo tape. Scott immediately became quite active in pushing the group forward, calling up clubs to book gigs and promoting the band – so much so, that he skipped a lot of classes in his senior year and barely graduated.

Scott became one of the city’s leading club promoters, but the lifestyle eventually became unrewarding.

While working at Nell’s, Scott became friends with the club’s manager Tex Axile, a colorful Scottish character with an endearingly foul mouth. Aside from learning many new swear words, Tex also taught Scott the ins and outs of nightclub management.

Then, one day, Tex told Scott about a new 10,000-square-foot dinner club called Lotus that was opening up in Manhattan’s trendy Meatpacking District and looking for promoters. Scott didn’t have much of a track record, but he clearly had energy and ambition, so the management at Lotus took a chance and, with low expectations, he was given the slowest night of the week to promote: Mondays.

Searching for meaning, Scott reconnected with his faith and joined the Mercy Ships program.

The next logical step in the career of a promoter like Scott would have been to own his own club, but Scott was moving in another direction, away from the New York City nightlife altogether. He was listening to sermons from the businessman-turned-Bible teacher, Chuck Missler, on his iPod, and trying to cut down on the smoking and drinking – which isn’t easy to do when Budweiser and Bacardi are each paying you $2,000 a month to be seen drinking their products.

But just as Scott was beginning to reconnect to his faith, there came an event that would really change his life once and for all.

Scott’s time with Mercy Ships opened his eyes to the importance of charity work.

In October 2004, the Mercy Ships’s 522-foot passenger liner left the Canary Islands for Cotonou, a port in Benin, Africa. Scott had sold off nearly everything in his New York City apartment, boarding the ship with little else besides a vintage Louis Vuitton bag stuffed with clothes and some packs of Nicorette.

Scott was among over 300 workers who kept the boat and the onboard hospital running smoothly. On the way to their destination, Scott learned some eye-opening details about Benin’s eight million residents, such as their average life expectancy of 51 years and the fact that they only had four doctors for every 100,000 people. Comparatively, the United States has seven doctors for every 325 people and an average life expectancy of 79 years.

Scott put his promoter skills to work on his first fundraiser and learned the importance of clean water.

Scott not only started a blog to share his Mercy Ships experiences, but he also used the prized mailing list of 15,000 people he’d formed during his time as a promoter to blast his posts out to his former clients. Some people unsubscribed immediately, unhappy about unexpectedly seeing a giant oozing tumor in their inbox, but by the end of Scott’s first voyage, his readers had actually increased.

Scott had witnessed people blinded by cataracts regain their sight, as well as kids who’d lost their lips, noses or cheeks due to dirty drinking water that contained the deadly noma virus. This is a terrible flesh-eating disease that can be easily prevented by better sanitation. He prayed for all of them and was forced to reconcile with many of the things he’d taken for granted during his life, like access to clean shelter, medical care and safe drinking water.

After funding his first well, Scott started charity: water and met his future wife.

In spring 2006, Scott met a woman known as Mama Vic who ran an orphanage about an hour outside of Monrovia, Liberia. Sometimes she looked after 150 kids, and the closest source of water was a mile and a half away, and the children hated fetching the water as they were often bullied by the local kids for being orphans.

Moved by her amazing resilience in helping so many children amid terrible conditions and often violent times in Liberia, Scott called his aunt and uncle to raise the $2,500 needed to drill a well for the orphanage.

The birthday campaign drives led to great success and one of the charity’s most humbling stories.

When Scott started charity: water, he didn’t want to just create another place for someone to make a donation, feel good for a moment and then forget about it. Instead, he wanted to create a revolutionary charity with “radical transparency” that ensured every penny of a donation was spent getting people clean water and keeping donors constantly up-to-date on how their money was being put to use.

To engage donors in exciting new ways, Scott came up with the idea for birthday campaigns. This allowed people to set up a campaign page on the charity: water website where they could direct friends and family to make a donation rather than buy presents.

A lawsuit and a failed well have been opportunities for Scott to prove his trustworthiness.

Rachel’s story was both heartbreaking and inspiring, and, as with all donor money, Scott felt a great responsibility to use each cent she raised as best he could. For this reason, each partnership charity: water makes with the businesses drilling the wells in Africa is put through a rigorous vetting process, and detailed reports are given to every donor, whether they give $1 or $1,000 so that they can see what’s happening with the project they helped fund.

So, it was frustrating, to say the least, when Scott learned that a corporate donor was so displeased with charity: water’s efforts that they were filing a lawsuit.

A tragic suicide brought Scott back to the importance and urgency of his work.

In 2012, Scott was sitting in a hotel bar in Ethiopia when the owner approached him to say thanks for the work he’d done in the area. The owner explained that he was from a village where it was very difficult to access water. It was such an ordeal, that when one woman fell and broke her pot of water, she was so distraught that she hanged herself from a tree just outside the village.

The story haunted Scott, and when he got back home, he wanted to find out more. With some help, he traced the story back to an isolated Ethiopian village called Meda. So, in November 2013, Scott wanted to learn more and undertook the difficult nine-hour hike to Meda.

Scott doubted his worth as a CEO, but he’s gained perspective on how he can help charity: water grow.

As the story of Letikiros shows, clean water not only prevents disease, it also empowers people, especially young women, by allowing them to get an education and avoid having to choose between a clean body and clean clothes.

Scott’s commitment to keeping charity: water growing led him to consider stepping down as CEO in 2015. That year was the first time they didn’t bring in more donations than the year before. And the truth is, Scott knows he isn’t the best CEO. To begin with, he doesn’t enjoy running meetings and holding employees accountable.

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Worum geht es in Thirst?

Thirst (2018) is the inspiring chronicle of Scott Harrison’s life from his unusual childhood to his nights as a party promoter in New York City, and finally, as the world-renowned CEO of charity: water. By using his skills as a promoter, Harrison has brought clean water to millions of people, and his life story, in more ways than one, offers a clear-eyed look at how one person really can make a difference in the world.

Bestes Zitat aus Thirst

An Ethiopian mother who had lost children was talking with an American mom who had lost a child, too. No translation was needed.

—Scott Harrison

Wer Thirst lesen sollte

Philanthropic people
Entrepreneurs looking to make a difference
Anyone interested in helping people in need

Über den Autor

Scott Harrison is the founder and CEO of charity: water, which has been opening access to clean water globally since 2006. With over 28,000 water projects launched, his organization has changed the lives of over 8.5 million people worldwide.

Kategorien mit Thirst

Biografien & Memoiren Wirtschaft Gesellschaft & Kultur

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