With a medical career in mind, the biology major from Bangalore, India, already had started to help ensure children in impoverished countries have access to proper health care services. But when COVID-19 hit, he turned the nonprofit’s global focus closer to Louisville to help local children in need start their school year more prepared after the pandemic affected their access to supplies and isolated them from their classmates.

He and the other UofL students reached out to businesses and donors for school supplies, working with the Portland-based Neighborhood House community center. The group assembled backpacks for 150 children and organized the next round of donations, some through a crowdfunding campaign, to be distributed later this summer for other students. The group launched an effort for people to write short notes of encouragement to the young students, and it also gave some supplies to the community center for its youth programs.

“We’re just a group of kids coming together to do what we can to help,” Kalvakuri said.

Inside the Mission CuraKid backpacks are snacks, schoolwork supplies and health and hygiene items such as toothpaste, sanitizer and soap. Also included are reusable cloth masks that community members crafted and donated.

Each backpack also contains a plastic Louisville pure tap water bottle from Louisville Water Co. While serving as a UofL Athletics photo intern, Kalvakuri had noticed the water company’s push to use those bottles during area sporting events and knew they would be a practical, reusable choice for encouraging the healthy habit of consuming water. The water company donated the bottles, wrote about the effort and continues to work as a partner on the backpack project.

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Besides the benefit of reducing plastic waste — Americans used an estimated 50 billion plastic water bottles last year — the fountains also reward users with totally free, cold, award-winning Louisville Water Company tap water.

The #backtothetap partnership continues this fall with the opening of the new Belknap Academic Building and its chilled tap water filling stations on every floor. Louisville Water Company representatives have also been on campus giving out free water during campus Move-in Day and other events. The Louisville Water Company even offers guest lecturers who teach real-world lessons about the crossroads of science and public health.

“With almost a fifth of the incoming first-year class coming from out-of-state, this is a great time to share the news that Louisville has some of the best-tasting, highest-quality tap water in the country,” said UofL President Neeli Bendapudi. “UofL is also committed to reducing waste of all kinds, and we encourage students, staff, faculty and visitors to come to campus with reusable bottles and fill them up at our filling stations. It’s the very definition of a win-win.”

Bendapudi recently tweeted a photo of herself with Louisville Water’s president, Spencer Bruce, and senior utility consultant, Vince Guenther.

The partnership grew out of a conversation several years ago between Kelley Dearing Smith, vice president of communications and marketing for the water company, and Justin Mog, UofL’s assistant to the provost for sustainability initiatives.

Students at the time were urging the university to ban bottled water or add a fee to cover the costs of recycling the plastic bottles. Instead, an educational campaign on the value of water and the high quality of Louisville’s tap water was born.

“Louisvillians are quite the water connoisseurs – we love the taste of our water,” Dearing Smith said. “Students coming to UofL from other cities, states and countries may not understand that affection – or may be hesitant to drink tap water. We began the campaign in 2015 with education and messaging and that continues today.”

Louisville’s water was named “The Best Tasting Tap Water in the Country” by the American Water Works Association in 2008 and the People’s Choice for “Best Tasting Water” in 2013, according to the water company’s website.

UofL is one of 50 partners that Louisville Water works with, placing signs above drinking water and fountains and filling stations around the city. Signs were placed recently in the newly renovated Kentucky International Convention Center, where 13 banks of water fountains with bottle filling stations were installed, and will be added to new fountains at Louisville International Airport in the coming months.

Louisville Water Company representatives are available to professors or even campus clubs to teach about the value of #backtothetap.

“I’ve worked with professors on topics ranging from the global and political issues on water, the difference between bottled water and tap water and the history/architecture of Louisville Water,” Dearing Smith said. “For those on campus who’d like to do more than drink the water, they can reach out to Louisville Water for a guest speaker, requests products like coolers and cups for an event or work with us on a special event.”

Dearing Smith added that, as the parent of a college student, she is aware of this generation’s “sincere appreciation for doing something that matters. I’m hopeful that this will be the generation that really gets #backtothetap. Many of these students grew up with parents who rushed into a large-box store to grab cases of bottled water for lunches, sports and school events. There will always be a time for bottled water – emergencies and national disasters – but we’re incredibly lucky to live in a community with some of the highest-quality and best-tasting tap water.”

Check out LouisvilleWater.com for more information and guest lecture opportunities.