Most little girls dream about their wedding day. The dress … the flowers … the rings. But Abby Taylor isn’t your typical bride. She and her groom-to-be had much bigger dreams.
The need to provide clean water for people in Africa was on Abby and Paul Taylor’s hearts long before they decided to tie the knot. After a trip to Zambia, Abby decided to create Catalyst Cake Pops, a business that funds the building of wells in impoverished communities overseas.
Paul has always been her right-hand man in her cake pop business. And now, as of this past Oct. 4, they’re partners for life.
Once Paul and Abby got engaged, their humanitarian efforts didn’t take a break for wedding planning. But instead of making cake pops to provide clean water, they decided to do something even bigger: donate a majority of their wedding fund to provide three wells in Zambia.
Abby is the first daughter born on her father’s side of the family in over 100 years. So Abby’s father was prepared to give her the wedding of her dreams with a budget that could fund an extravagant wedding.
But that’s not what Paul and Abby wanted. Once they learned how much Abby’s parents were giving them for their wedding budget, the couple asked if they could use only $5,000 of it for the wedding and donate the rest.
“Walking down the aisle, that’s just one day,” Abby explained. “And to spend that amount of money on one day didn’t feel right to me. … We knew we wanted to do something with the money beyond that.”
Abby and Paul were determined to stick to their plan. So, with their smaller budget in mind, they scrimped and saved as much as possible.
“I took our own engagement pictures,” Paul said. “And they turned out just as good as others I’ve seen.” The pictures cost the couple nothing since Paul used his own equipment.
He also designed their digital save-the-dates and invitations, which they emailed to cut back on printing and postage.
It was a lot of hard work and planning, but, much like their cake pop business, Abby and Paul worked together for the greater good.
“All this work,” Abby said, “it’s all worth it for the one.”
That has been Abby’s motto since the beginning of Catalyst Cake Pops. She would still put in the hours, the labor, and the love if it meant only one child had access to clean water and the ability to hear about the Living Water.
Abby and Paul gave up an extravagant “one day” to make sure that children in three grateful communities in Zambia had access to fresh, uncontaminated water for many days to come.
Not only are Abby and Paul on the journey of a lifetime, but they’ve helped others begin the journey to healthier, happier lives, too.
And you can do the same. If you can’t afford to provide an entire well, a gift of just $15 is still enough to provide clean water for one person for an entire year!
“Water creates change in so many different ways,” Abby said. But first people have to have access to it. Will you give this life-changing gift to one person today?