The project “Clean Wells for Cambodia” came into life when Sunrise Rotarian Marian Stephenson visited Cambodia on a personal trip and noticed a well, which had been built by a Rotary club from Oklahoma. Throughout her trip, Marian had noticed the need for clean water in rural Cambodia. Providing clean water to impoverished areas is one of Rotary international’s goals. Cambodia is a very depleted country due to the Vietnam communists using it as a staging area during the Vietnam War and with the US responding with large-scale bombings, killing thousands of Cambodians, which then gave rise to Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge in 1975. The Khmer Rouge killed an estimated 2 million Cambodians (particularly targeting the educated). Its greatest industry now is tourism due to Angkor Wat. However, the distant rural people do not benefit from the tourism. Therefore, together with her two friends, Delores and Denise, Marian applied for a Rotary grant to build three wells in Cambodia in the name of the Chapel Hill Carrboro Rotary club. Marian received the grant and in the fall of 2009 the three wells were being built. Construction was overseen by Cambodian Khin-Po-Thai, whom Marian had met on her trip to Cambodia. Khin-Po-Thai scouted for suitable places for the wells in the rural areas of the country, while being mindful of lead contamination and where families would most benefit from the wells. Khin-Po-Thai then recruited construction crews, who drilled the wells. Together with the help of Khin-Po-Thai, the Sunrise Rotary club has built 19 wells in Cambodia since 2009.