For my birthday a while back, some of you may remember I asked you all to contribute to a project to build wells to bring clean water to a village in our family's home state of Orissa.

I have some incredible news to share.

The project you all made possible has now been completed!

In addition to partially helping fund several other projects, your efforts built a complete water and sanitation system for a village of 31 families. I'm so happy and proud to see this work come to fruition, especially as it's dedicated to my parents Mira Dash and Umakant Dash.

Both in villages in Orissa and here in the U.S. in cities like Detroit and Flint, we can see how fundamental the need for clean, reliable water is; it's truly the basic building block for every other part of daily life. I've been so fortunate to have always had access, and to have the privilege of an incredible network of friends and loved ones who know the importance of these essentials.

As I said when I originally asked everyone to give, Gandhi himself said “Sanitation is more important than independence.” That’s a truth that is as every bit as relevant today as it was decades ago when he said it. Best of all, we can continue this work—it’s easy to set up a recurring gift with Charity Water to help continue their efforts to bring clean water to the people who need it most.

This is what we can do together. I can't thank you all enough!