SAN ANTONIO — A group of high schoolers are tapping in on water conservation.
Through their nonprofit "Youth Impact for the Future of San Antonio," three seniors at Keystone School are helping low income families save on their water bills.
Rashmi Basu, Ajay Panday and Cody Zhu have a world of information at their fingertips but in embracing the unknown, a little gadget called an aerator is helping their communities right at the tap.
"We distributed to over 180 families…these faucet aerators and we show them how to install them and maintain them," Panday said.
It all started with a project through the City of San Antonio. At first the team was tasked with trying to fight hunger but it slowly evolved in helping households conserve water.
Basu said they initially wanted to completely redesign a faucet but then they found out about aerators.
“It reduces the amount of water used by 55%…which is about half to two gallons of water per minute," Basu said.
The team started distributing the aerators at food banks across the city. Over the next four years they would provide this tool to over 180 families.
Zhu said they found a correlation between low income zip codes and older homes. These older homes don't have aerators on their faucets, so in turn they do not conserve any water or energy.
Now the future engineers have hope for their generation. They see the impact a community can leave and the inspiration it can have on their endeavors.
Moving forward the seniors hope this project is carried on by other students at Keystone and aerators continue to be distributed at food banks across the city.
If you would like to find out more about this resource, the nonprofit or other ways you can conserve water yourself, send an email to this address: yifsa.contact@gmail.com.