Brittany Harris heads back to Malawi for ninth water mission trip

Brittany Harris will return to Malawi in November for her ninth trip with Water Wells for Africa, revisiting villages where local clinics once flagged serious waterborne disease risk. Her childhood fundraiser, Brittany’s Dream, has helped raise money for more than 30 wells serving 15,000 people.

Why it matters: - Harris’s return puts a personal success story back in the field where it started: childhood fundraising has translated into wells, clinic follow-up and measurable health impact in Malawi. - Water Wells for Africa is using clinic reports to track whether villages with new wells are seeing fewer waterborne disease cases. - The trip highlights how a youth-led effort in Texas grew into long-term clean water work in rural Malawi.

What happened: - Brittany Harris will travel to Malawi in November for her ninth trip with Water Wells for Africa. - Harris is returning to villages that local health clinics identified as especially hard hit by waterborne illness and that have since received WWFA wells. - Harris began raising money for clean water at age 9 in Friendswood, Texas, after a church concert and a school assignment about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech inspired her to write, "I have a dream that kids in Africa will have clean water." - Her fundraiser, Brittany’s Dream, started with Thanksgiving bake sales and later became a large volunteer effort.

The details: - By high school, Harris and volunteers were baking 300 to 500 pies and 2,000 to 3,000 cake balls over four days during Thanksgiving break. - Ingredients came from school drives and donations from Harris’s parents. - Donors paid what they wanted, and all proceeds went to water wells. - From 2013 through 2026, Brittany’s Dream raised a quarter of a million dollars. - At 13, Harris found a video about "The Malawi Mountain Project" while preparing a church presentation. - Harris’s mother recognized the project and connected the family with Kurt Dahlin, whose mission had helped install wells in Malawi. - Harris began raising funds for Water Wells for Africa that same year. - Harris also organized three Walks for Water in Friendswood and one in College Station to raise money and awareness about long daily water collection trips. - Harris studied marketing with a focus on professional selling at Texas A&M University and minored in entrepreneurship. - She joined WWFA as an intern in the spring of her sophomore year, then worked part-time through graduation on social media and outreach. - Dahlin later offered Harris a full-time role with WWFA. - Harris’s first two Malawi trips were as a donor, her third was as an intern, and she has made five more as a staff member. - Harris’s mother traveled with her to Malawi twice, at ages 14 and 16, and her sister Jordynne joined her on her first trip. - Harris now lives in Houston. - WWFA says Harris has helped raise enough money to install more than 30 water wells serving 15,000 people. - WWFA provides clean, safe drinking water to rural communities in Malawi through well installation. - More information is available at Water Wells for Africa.

Between the lines: - The clinic check-ins suggest WWFA is trying to move beyond building wells and into outcome tracking. - Harris’s story is also a fundraising tool: the organization can point to a donor-turned-staff member whose childhood effort became a sustained career. - The return visit gives WWFA a chance to show whether clean water access is reducing illness in the same communities that once reported the most risk.

What's next: - Harris and the WWFA team plan to meet with clinic staff again during the November trip to assess how clean water is affecting community health. - The team will continue visiting the high-priority villages clinics named earlier this year. - WWFA is expected to keep installing wells in communities identified as most affected by waterborne disease.

The bottom line: - A pie fundraiser started by a 9-year-old is now tied to a clean water program with a measurable footprint in Malawi.