Volunteers Making an Impact: Knoxville Team Leads Third Walk for Water
Around the country, teams of individuals from diverse backgrounds and life circumstances unite around one goal: to help bring safe water to people in need. These volunteers serve Water Mission day-in and day-out, selflessly giving of their time, talent, and treasure to raise funds and awareness to end the global water crisis.
In Knoxville, Tennessee, one volunteer team recently held their third annual Walk for Water, where they raised more than $26,000, which will bring safe water access to 500 people. Over the course of three years, the team has raised more than $100,000 for Water Mission’s work around the world.
“What I love most [about the Walk] is being able to make it more real for people,” said Katie Romba, Knoxville Walk Coordinator. “Talking about statistics and different stories can only go so far with how people intake the information, but actually giving them the bucket and giving them the water [helps them] understand that this is a really difficult thing that children and women in developing countries are having to do every single day.”
The 2025 Walk for Water in Knoxville was held at the Knoxville Zoo. Many families participated for the first time.
Nicole Smoak, Knoxville Area Team Leader, shared that more than half of this year’s 250 walkers were first-time participants. “It’s been cool to see people just advocating in their own workplaces, churches, [and] community groups that they’re involved in, and I think that has contributed to a lot of the growth in the Walk for Water,” Smoak said.
Romba and Smoak feel called by God to volunteer with Water Mission because of their engineering backgrounds and Christian faith. Both women decided to be engineers after hearing about the global water crisis for the first time. For Romba, this happened during her freshman year at Clemson University.
“At that point, I had never even heard of the global water crisis before,” Romba said. “So, there I am in an auditorium of about 200 people, crying at the end of this video [about the global water crisis]… It was one of the few times that God has so clearly spoken to me about my life. It was in that moment I heard God say, ‘This is your life’s purpose. You’re going to go pursue this now.’”
Probably the two most important things in my life are my faith and that I’ve always wanted to be a water engineer. Getting to combine those two things and help people have safe drinking water and also use that as an opportunity to share the love of God is just the best. Any way that I can be involved in that is awesome.
Leading a team or coordinating a Walk is not the only way that volunteers around the country make an impact.
Nancy Moore has been involved with the Knoxville Volunteer Team since it began, with her husband, Bill, being the first Area Team Leader. However, in 2019, Moore was diagnosed with breast cancer and two years later, the cancer returned. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and her weak immune system, Moore was unable to be as involved with Water Mission as she wanted to be.
So, she began to meet weekly with Water Mission staff members on virtual calls to pray. She devoted herself to praying for the ministry, the National Volunteer Program, and the communities we serve around the world.
“I was able to be involved and to feel like I was making a difference or doing something when, otherwise, I was pretty much stuck at home...because of my immune system,” Moore said.
Even before doctors declared her as showing “no evidence of disease,” Moore never let her health diagnosis stop her from making an impact on the ministry.
“It’s been a year and a half that I have shown no evidence of disease, so I was able to stop the chemo in March, which allowed me to start physical therapy and get back in shape for this year’s Walk,” Moore said. “I was able to go and participate in that event. Praise God – we’ve had three Walks in Knoxville, and I haven’t missed a Walk.”
Despite her cancer diagnosis, Knoxville volunteer Nancy Moore hasn’t missed a Walk. She continues to pray diligently over the ministry.
Moore knows that God should be at the center of their work. This is why she prioritizes covering their every endeavor in prayer.
It’s not our work – it’s God’s work. And if we’re not communicating with Him, we’re going to get it wrong.... Clearly throughout Scripture, providing water to those in need is really important to Him, and [we see] the theme of Living Water throughout Scripture, so we know we’re on the right track if we’re helping to provide those things.
There are many ways to volunteer with Water Mission and use your gifts to help bring safe water to people around the world.
The Knoxville Volunteer Team is only one of many volunteer teams across the country making an impact on lives around the world. Water Mission’s work to provide safe and Living Water would not be possible without them.
To find a volunteer team in your area or to receive more information on starting your own, visit watermission.org/join-us/volunteer.
Nicole Smoak advises, “Get started and tell the people who you know and who you do life with daily, and I think it will just create this ripple effect, and that’s what we’ve seen here in Knoxville.”
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