Anthony Slater has worked with hundreds of elite athletes and the U.S. men’s national soccer team, helping players get stronger, faster, and more durable. But during his most recent efforts on a soccer field in Uganda, Africa, he had a far more basic yet incredibly important goal: to provide clean drinking water to kids.

According to the non-profit RainCatcher.org, water-related diseases account for 4,500 lost lives each day, ninety percent of whom are children under 5 years old. Slater, who is Core Performance’s director of performance, spent his vacation days this summer travelling with RainCatcher to meet with schools and put in place systems to collect and clean water. Leveraging his knowledge in health and soccer, Slater was able to connect with kids on and off the soccer field to teach them the value of hydration when they play and at all times. Although the kids typically drink local water, they limit what they drink because they know it’s unsafe. Slater says that using RainCatcher’s water filtration systems to clean water, fill up some water bottles, and go play a game of soccer was an opportunity to associate hydration with exercise and good health.

To learn about Rain Catcher, visit http://www.raincatcher.org.

To learn more about Anthony Slater’s trip, check out http://slaterslive.tumblr.com.