“Hi Caitlin! I go to St. Francis.” ❤️

It was a simple handwritten sign held by a young fan hoping to get Caitlin Clark’s attention at an Indiana Fever game.

And it did.

But when we saw the photo, something else immediately caught our attention.

St. Francis.

Caitlin attended St. Francis of Assisi Catholic School in West Des Moines before moving on to Dowling Catholic and, eventually, becoming an Iowa Hawkeye.

More than 8,000 miles away, in Moshi, Tanzania, there is another St. Francis community very close to our hearts.

The two St. Francis communities share a connection through a sister-church relationship — linking people in Iowa with people on the other side of the world.

So when that young fan held up her sign saying, “Hi Caitlin! I go to St. Francis,” we couldn't help but think about the students in Moshi who could say:

“Hey Caitlin, we go to St. Francis, too.”

Iowa is a small place with a big reach.

And maybe that's part of why The Hawkeye State and Purify Project fit together so naturally.

Iowa is about community.

It's neighbors helping neighbors. It's small towns showing up for each other. It's people rallying behind a cause, a school, a team — or one of their own.

We've watched that happen on an extraordinary scale with Caitlin Clark.

What started in Iowa City became something much bigger. Hawkeye fans followed Caitlin to Indiana. New fans joined them. People from every corner of the country — and around the world — became part of this community.

That same sense of community can do something bigger than basketball.

That's where Purify Project comes in.

Purify Project has deep Iowa roots but a mission that reaches far beyond our borders: helping bring sustainable access to clean water to communities that need it.

And The Hawkeye State has something incredibly valuable to contribute to that mission:

people.

Thousands of people who read our posts, celebrate the wins, debate the calls, follow the scores and share the stories.

So we're asking that community to do something remarkably simple.

Keep doing it.

Read. Like. Comment. Share.

When our Purify Project-related Facebook content generates revenue, 100% of that revenue is donated to Purify Project.

That means something as simple as sharing a Caitlin Clark or Fever scoreboard post can help a clean-water organization reach more people — while also helping generate revenue that goes directly back to the mission.

No complicated fundraiser.

No big ask.

Just a community using what it already does every day to help another community thousands of miles away.