Ingomar Living Waters fundraiser to help hydrate thousands around the world

Gazing out over Pittsburgh’s three rivers from the Carnegie Science Center, attendees of Ingomar Living Waters’ upcoming fundraiser will be considering the waters elsewhere.

The group, founded as a charity organization among parishioners at Ingomar United Methodist Church in Franklin Park, has held its Turning Wine Into Water event since 2011. And this year, the leader of ILW, Andy Fraley, said his organization expects to host about 150 large-scale donors.

ILW supplies funds for numerous on-the-ground operations to supply clean water to thousands of people in 34 different countries, Fraley said.

The group began after a church book club read a book that compelled them to “put their faith into action” by rendering aid to others, Fraley said.

Turning Wine Into Water began as a small-scale charity event at Engine House 25 Wines, which is housed in the same complex as the Roberto Clemente Museum in Lawrenceville.

But since a large expansion of water projects in 2018, Fraley said “everything changed.” ILW has since raised about $2 million and outgrown its former location, moving to the science center.

“It just kind of happened with a spark in the church,” Fraley said.

The event, which offers sponsorship levels that range from $500 to $10,000, will feature a keynote speaker, auctions and plenty of wine.

Though the event has outgrown his space, the owner of Engine House 25, Duane Rieder, said he and his wine remain deeply involved in the event.

Rieder said he acted as last year’s keynote speaker. Also the owner of the Clemente Museum, he said he appreciates the fact that ILW’s work in places such as Nicaragua continues the humanitarian goals of the baseball phenom, who died Dec. 31, 1972, in a plane crash en route to that country to help with earthquake relief.

“I’m just very blessed to be a part of it and see it grow, and hopefully it’s going to continue,” Rieder said.

This year’s keynote speaker will be Stephen Greene, who at the time of this writing is on-site in the Volta region of Ghana.

There, he is doing work for his charity, Hope for Ghana. Greene is the latest partner of ILW, but he said the group’s contributions have been “monumental.”

Though his charity did not originally focus on water — mainly prioritizing education and school building — he quickly came to realize the importance of the resource, Greene said, when his engineers struggled to mix concrete to build a school without ready access to water.

To mix the concrete, his engineers drilled deep boreholes into the earth to gain access to clean underground aquifers. But Greene said he soon noticed villagers also using the new well to access purer drinking water. The longtime charity worker said his greatest humanitarian action was “purely an accident.”

Since then, Greene said his charity has worked on six to 10 water projects annually. But after he began his partnership with ILW last year, Hope for Ghana completed 18 projects just in 2024. In total, he said the projects have provided clean water to about 100 Ghanaian villages.

“The work of any charity, whether it’s Hope for Ghana or any other, doesn’t exist without these kinds of partnerships,” he said.

At the event, Greene said he hopes to impart the message that charitable efforts in Pittsburgh do have real effects in places that may seem far off. The Shadyside resident said he plans to bring photos and videos to show the “jubilation” of those with new access to pure water.

But it was the opposite sort of story that got Tom Quinlan and his wife, Erin, involved in ILW. A longtime donor from the Engine House 25 days, Quinlan said he was affected by the story of a pregnant woman carrying a barrel of water as she marched to the hospital to give birth.

The Franklin Park resident said he thought of his own two daughters in such a position and has been active ever since.

He said he appreciates the fact he can see the “happiness created” directly by his donation rather than just giving to a large charity and hoping the money reaches the right people.

“It brings out a lot of great people to contribute to a great cause,” Quinlan said.

Turning Wine Into Water will take place on April 26. Sponsorship information can be found on ILW’s website at ingomarlivingwaters.org.