Freedom & Clean Water for the Soul - A World Away – And Based In Greenville – Charity Frees Children, Delivers Clean Water

Yahoo

12-05-2025

Sarah Kelley's children can turn on any faucet in their Greenville home and pour a glass of clean water.
The children she helps thousands of miles away cannot.
It's been nine years since Kelley traveled to a village in Sierra Leone to watch her coworkers and a local crew drill a water well. As the crew was setting up, Kelley saw a mother from the village walk past, a daughter by her side and a toddler strapped to her back.
'I followed them,' Kelley says. 'We came to … the technical term is an 'open well' … but it's a hole in the ground. The water has bugs and debris. It's gross.'
The woman's daughter hooked a bucket onto a long stick with a notch. 'She lowers the bucket into this well and pulls it back up. The mother puts the bucket on her head, and they slowly start back up the path.'
At that time, Kelley had been with Greenville-based Set Free Alliance for six months. Today, she is its CEO.
'Watching, I understood how important this work is. My two kids were about the same age. The only thing separating our two families was where I happened to be born and where they happened to be born. I had overwhelming gratitude. My kids can turn on any faucet in our house. And that water is clean. But this family … this water would probably make them sick.'
Because Set Free's work is funded solely by donations, the work is not impacted by recent cuts in federal aid, says Andrew Hendricks, an Upstate native and Program Director of Set Free. 'Set Free is proud to not skip a beat.'
The Christian-based charity was founded by Upstate engineer Roland Bergeron, who led missions in the early 2000s to drill water wells in Honduras.
'Roland realized that we were doing the right thing, but in the wrong location,' Kelley says.
Bergeron switched the group's focus to Liberia and began fundraising with Brookwood Church in Simpsonville to purchase a drill rig. He partnered with the Christian Revival Church Association in Liberia.
'They actually practiced drilling on the campus of Brookwood Church and shipped it over. In the first years, it was him flying over with a couple of people from the United States who would find indigenous Liberian crews and train them to drill water wells,' Kelley says.
Bergeron turned over his home-building business to his son in 2010 and began working full time to bring water and Christianity to Liberia, Sierra Leone and India.
He also established the organization's model: partner with a local pastor and a local drilling crew; help pastors establish churches; train crews to drill and repair wells and then verify their work.
'If you don't have training, you don't know that this $5,000 well isn't working because of a 50-cent seal. That's the most common part that goes bad, and they're readily available in village markets,' Kelley says.
Set Free finished its work in Liberia two years ago and donated the equipment to a local organization.
But Set Free's work in Sierra Leone and India was already progressing and continues – establishing churches, drilling wells and repairing wells.
In India, the life-giving and lifesaving mission expanded to include medical clinics and and freeing children from their slave labor in brick factories and slate quarries.
The mission to rescue children also began with Bergeron, who has since retired and passed leadership to Kelley.
'Our main partner took Roland to a mine and showed him that the mine was full of kids in slavery,' Hendricks says.
Bergeron was determined to help.
'In the middle of the night, we go into these mines, brick factories and take kids out. It's a massive undertaking, an undercover operation that takes tons of planning,' Hendricks says.
'Most people doing this work are pastors, and they're putting their lives on the line.'
Typically, the rescues occur during a Hindu festival, when mine operators are partying and distracted. Civilians don't carry guns in India, but the work is dangerous, Hendricks says. During an early rescue, three pastors were caught, beaten and killed.
Up to 100 rescuers hike through the woods to remote locations and walk back out with as many as 2,500 children, who are taken in different directions to dozens of waiting vehicles, Hendricks says.
About 1,200 rescued children live at a campus built in 2018.
'They go to school. They play. They worship. They're truly loved and cared for and are reminded that they're worthy of living and being reunited with their families,' Hendricks says.
Almost three-quarters of the children return to their families, but it's not possible if parents have died, can't care for the children – or if they are the ones who sold their children into slavery, he says.
About 10,000 rescued children live with pastors and in church homes across India. 'A pastor and his wife usually have about 10 children in their care,' he says.
Some girls make Wellas – colorful stuffed elephants handmade from scraps of material donated by young women who work in the tailoring industry.
'They're all different. They're so beautiful. The girls practice sewing and send them to us. We use them to talk about the need for clean water,' says Emily Scurry, Set Free's Director of Operations and Events. 'I have one in my breakfast room. I look at it every morning and wonder about the girl who made it, wonder what her life is like.'
Set Free is nondenominational. But it is a Christian ministry.
'The foundation of everything we do is to open the doors for our pastor partners to share the gospel and plant churches. It's why we use local indigenous pastors who know the language, who know the culture,' Kelley says.
'Our work is not conditional. Drilling a well is not conditional on the village becoming Christian. But when a humanitarian need is met, the natural organic growth of the church starts.'
Hendricks, who aspired to do mission work, hadn't realized that Set Free operates from his own backyard. 'There's amazing work happening around the world, and that ministry is based here in Greenville.'
For information about Set Free Alliance and its humanitarian work, go to www.setfreealliance.org.
This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Freedom & Clean Water for the Soul - Greenville Charity Frees Children