A Dec. 7 Metro article stated that the Kanye West Foundation donated money to finance the Good Water Store and Cafe. Kanye West gave the money directly to his father, the cafe's owner, rather than through his foundation.
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How'd You Like Your Water?
Owner Ray West, father of rapper Kanye West, with a bottle of his store's water. The business is billed as the first of its kind in Maryland.
(Mark Gail - Twp)
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"This has never been done before, so there was bound to be some confusion," Ray West said. "We went to the county health department and they said, 'What the heck is a water store?' "
The cafe does serve more than water. It has a wide selection of teas, bubble tea, wraps, salads, yogurt, smoothies and coffee, but they are all made with premium distilled water. West hopes visitors will also rely on his store for regular drinking and cooking water. In the back, customers can purchase plastic drums and pump water from his taps.
West says his aim is to spur awareness of global clean-water issues.
"There's just so much in our water that there's no natural way of getting it out because these are man-made chemicals," West said. "We've reached the point where people have to take personal responsibility for what they drink, and that's what we're trying to teach people here."
West, 57, has lived in the region for 20 years. He moved from Atlanta, where Kanye was born and where Ray was the first black photographer for the Journal-Constitution. Kanye's parents split up when he was 2, and he grew up in Chicago with his mother but spent summers in the D.C. area with his father.
Ray relocated to St. Mary's County in 2001 to serve as clinical director at a mental health clinic, then later taught sociology at the College of Southern Maryland. During his teaching, West discovered that access to clean water was the second highest cause of global anxiety after oil.
"It just clicked to me, the way global warming is now starting to resonate with many people," West said. Around this time, Kanye's career was taking off, "and I wanted him to associate with something positive," West continued. "I knew at the time that he was touring with U2. I told him, 'Listen to some of the things Bono is saying. Wrap yourself in some of the things like that.' "
Ray West scouted the District but found the rents prohibitive. Gwen Bankins, a distribution system operator with Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative and special events coordinator at the St. Mary's County Teen Center, appealed to him to keep his business in St. Mary's because the cafe could offer an opportunity for local artists.
The economy of Lexington Park, population 12,000, has long centered on the Patuxent River Naval Air Station. As the base has grown considerably in the past 15 years, it has spurred commercial and residential growth, generating an influx of well-educated professionals. Median household income has jumped from $54,706 in 2000 to $62,939 in 2005, keeping the county more than $1,000 above the state average.
West saw an untapped market.
"Lexington Park is going to be a very nice place, and we are hoping to catch the front end of that wave," he said.
Although bottled water isn't the rarefied refreshment it once was -- the Beverage Marketing Corp. predicts that single-serve bottled water will overtake soda as the best-selling beverage by 2012 -- West said that in this region water access and purity issues are often an afterthought.
