By Kayla DeKraker
At 90 years old, legendary singer and Christian Pat Boone is undertaking a special project to make a huge difference for those without water in Africa.
“The goal was to drill fresh water wells in these desolate areas in the 40 nations of Africa,” Boone told Christian Post of a project called “Cape Town to Cairo” which began a decade ago.
While working on that project, he learned about Tanzania’s significant issues with contaminated water.
“They don’t know it, and they take the water back to the children and poison them unintentionally with the water,” Boone explained of the women who travel miles to find water for their children.
This led the singer and his wife Shirley to create the Pat and Shirley Boone Family Life Center.
“The tribes there sang for me. They didn’t know who I was,” he recalled. “They just knew somebody from America had come in and was bringing them water.”
His passion led him to write his song, “ONE,” and WorldServe International, a nonprofit working to bring clean water to Africa, wanted to use it to fundraise money for the cause.
“They said, ‘Can we use this song as a fundraiser? Because people just don’t know about this problem,'” Boone recalled.
The singer agreed and welcomed other musicians to take part in the special work: “My country music entertainers, they always come. When there’s a desperate need, they always come to the fore and help.”
He added, “We purposely recorded it to sound like a Neil Diamond anthem. And I tried to get to Neil…But he is slipping away now into the twilight with Alzheimer’s.”
Along with Boone, the song features Alabama, Vince Gill, Billy Dean, Pam Tillis, Lee Greenwood, Wendy Moten and more, according to the Christian Post.
The song also has African natives singing along in Swahili, a touch that really personalizes it.
Related: Pat Boone: ‘The Lord Is Using Every Last Ounce of Me for His Purposes’
“They are helping raise water for their own people in this song,” Boone explained.
“This song is reaching millions of people on all the music servers. We’re calling it like the ‘We Are the World’ thing. We’re calling it ‘We Are the Well.'”
It’s touching listeners and ranking on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart.
The song’s official music opens with some sad and startling facts about the water situation in Tanzania.
“Nearly half of the population of Tanzania lives without clean water,” the video reads. “Every day, women and children walk over 3 miles each way to the nearest water source. Rationed, contaminated water is collected for drinking, cooking, washing, and bathing. WorldServe International is committed to solving this crisis.”
Boone’s strong Christian faith informs his desire to serve others.
“We are living a life now as a preparation for an eternal life. It’s a warm-up,” he said in a previous interview. “And it’s also a test for where we’re going to spend eternity. We need to know who our Creator is, we need to know why we’re here.”
Read Next: Want to Succeed in Hollywood? Pat Boone Says Ditch ‘Corrupt Films’
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