08-02-2025
Chaskans help give thousands clean water
While Wyn Ray works as the vice president for Coldwell Banker Burnet for most of the year, he spends his vacations helping bring clean water to thousands in Ethiopia.
Wyn and his wife, Sonja Ray, are primarily working on decreasing disease and death rates in a remote village located in mountainous area called Wekin. Since they started seven years ago, the Rays helped the villagers repair the town's main water well, complete a major latrine and furnish the inside of a school with desks and chairs for the children.
For his work in the project, Wyn was awarded the National Association of Realtors' Good Neighbor Award and $10,000 that will go toward helping people in the area. While the Rays have funded many of the projects with their own money, they have also raised over $100,000 online.
'I'm humbled because some of the other winners are very impressive,' he said. 'We are just doing whatever we can do to help these people.'
While material items are needed in the region, Sonja said Wyn's work was important because it helped teach people in the village how to write and negotiate contracts.
'We forget to teach people how to do what we do for them,' she said. 'He taught them how to do business and because of that they have been doing more negotiation with their own (governmental) agencies.'
That's how the small village, where the average person makes less than $2 a day, was able to obtain desks and chairs for their classrooms. Previous to that, the children had to sit and write on the dirt floor.
The two first trusted the villagers when they returned to Wekin after their first visit, Sonja said.
In the first visit, Wyn drafted a contract in which the villagers promised to finish building a latrine and in exchange the couple gave them money to pay for the supplies and labor involved in the project.
When they returned to the village a second time, the leaders of Wekin showed them exactly how much each material cost. The Rays noticed that the project was cheaper than they had budgeted.
'They could have pocketed the extra money,' Sonja said. But the villagers didn't. Instead they used the extra funds on another project in Wekin and had documented how much it cost them.
'It shows that they are really honest people, they are just really poor,' she added.
Hope in pencils
The journeys started in 2009 when Sonja wanted to visit a clinic she worked at as a nurse before she fled the the country in the 1970s, when a new government took power. They discovered that the clinic (located near Wekin) had been transformed into a military base over the years. When Sonja spoke to the commander of the base, he tearfully told her that he had been one of the children she had given a pencil to.
While children in the region have access to workbooks, many lack writing utensils. Those without pens or pencils can't attend school and have to work on the farms, Wyn said.
'She came back and told me that story and I thought 'Wow one pencil changed his life,'' he added.
Now, each time they visit the village, they bring 10,000 pens. They also fill their carry-on luggage with items like scientific microscopes, braille machines and shoes. Wyn estimates they carry about 560 pounds of supplies each trip (they usually have a few friends with them).
Future projects
With the $10,000 Wyn was given, the couple hopes to build smaller wells in the region – primarily for those who are located in the farmland.
Each small hand pump will be able to provide water to about 300 people, which is just how tiny some of the outlying villages are, Wyn said.
Simultaneously, the Rays are also working on building a library for the villagers. They plan to ship about 20,000 books they obtained from the Carver County Library's book sale to the village.
Currently the village only has 70 books written in English.
'It's to make them self sufficient,' Sonja said. 'The library would also be helping the towns north and south of Wekin.'
Additionally, they are working with a non-profit – New Covenant Foundation – to build a clinic in the region and to rebuild a slaughterhouse to reduce diseases.
'It's something we take for granted,' Wyn said. '[The conditions] are like how it would be living in Chaska in the 1800s.'
'Anyone can do something for anybody. Anything is feasible,' he added.
