Water by rail, Pennsylvania Jacob’s Well partners with St. Bonaventure to deliver water
THOREAU, N.M.
On Interstate 40, aid from a Pennsylvania native strengthens a decades-long St. Bonaventure tradition as local remote Navajos receive water.
Andrew Halter, 58, an experienced railroad maintenance and repairman, created his company, Jacob’s Well, in 2021. He built the company to help communities without clean, running water.
The program to distribute water to the Navajo people through St. Bonaventure began 30 years ago when the Mission could only give out 250 gallons of water a month. However, with the help of Andrew, St. Bonaventure’s water distribution has risen to higher levels than ever before.
“It’s something that’s been on my heart for a long time because my brother is involved with St. Bonaventure Mission, and I knew about the work that he was doing out there,” Halter said. “In my conversations with him, he was concerned that their (Navajo people’s) wells were drying up, and they were needing another water source.
“That’s how it got started (and) the idea came to me like a clap of thunder one day going to work,” he said. “It was like, ‘Boom! Here’s what you’re going to do today.’”
Read the full story in the June 1 edition of the Navajo Times.
Highway 264,
I-40, WB @ Winslow