Drilling Community Responds to Call for Help

well at Kendleton Farms campus — Now that Elijah Rising’s Kendleton Farms campus has running potable water, it will be able to more quickly achieve its mission of helping victims of sex trafficking re-enter society. *Source: Tim Mulville*

After *National Driller* published an article on Kendleton Farms’ need for a new water well, drilling professionals from across the nation called offering help. *Source: Tim Mulville photos*

Bussell & Sons drilled the well — Bussell & Sons of Tomball, Texas, voluntarily drilled a new water well and covered permitting.

potable water — Mulville estimates that if the water well project were paid, it would likely cost the non-profit around $65,000 to $75,000.

In late January, Tim Mulville, president and CEO of Missouri City, Texas-based non-profit Wells of Hope, contacted National Driller about the need of a nearby missionary organization he’s grown well acquainted with through the church he attends.

The Houston non-profit, Elijah Rising, founded by Cat French, had recently purchased an 85-acre property, Kendleton Farms, which they plan to turn into a supportive community for more than 100 women who have fallen victim to the commercial sex industry. It will serve as a rehabilitative haven that will help those victims re-enter society with job skills and savings.

Unfortunately, the water well designed to distribute potable water across the campus to survivors, employees and volunteers was defunct and rehabbing or replacing it would be pricy.

Anxious to get Elijah Rising help with the large-diameter well, Mulville, who’d been given estimates ranging from $35,000 to $130,000, hoped that National Driller might be a helpful way to spread the word across the wider drilling community.

Just a month after running an article on Kendleton Farms’ need for help in March, National Driller heard back from Micah Bailey, director of operations for Elijah Rising.

Bailey sent a letter signed by French that reads, “Thank you for supporting Elijah Rising by featuring Kendleton Farms in your magazine. Due to your publicity, Kendleton has been the benefactor of a brand new commercial grade well, which will service up to nine buildings, multiple families and countless future women out of the sex industry. We owe all our gratitude to the Lord for provision, but also to you for your professional support. Thank you from the entire staff.”

Mulville also shared a very positive update on the status of the water well.

After reading the article, Mulville says Craig Bussell, vice president of Bussell & Sons LLC in Tomball, Texas, gave him a call and they met at Kendleton Farms to evaluate the well site. Bussell was one of many individuals who called from across the nation to offer help, according to Mulville, and he pulled together additional companies within his network to make it happen. “Craig is a very special man in having the heart to make this happen and we are so grateful to him for this,” Mulville says.

The old well was capped and an entirely new one was drilled about 15 feet east of the old one. The new water well is producing about 7,000 gph, which is 2,000 gph more than what Elijah Rising needed to satisfy certain compliance requirements, French says. “This whole project saved us about $100,000, which we can now use to bring our building up to code and provide care for clients who are waiting to get into the program.”

The well was drilled using the mud method and a Failing rotary table drill rig. From the time of Bussell’s initial phone call, Mulville says the job took approximately two weeks, and that it would have been completed sooner if it weren’t for heavy rains.

Bussell & Sons donated water well installation and permitting. Pumps of Houston Inc. donated a five-horsepower submersible pumping unit, solution type chlorinator and controls. Gulf Coast Pump & Supply of Houston donated drilling mud products and a 900-gallon pressure tank. Envirodyne Laboratories Inc., also based in Houston, donated water testing. Water Engineers Inc., located in Cypress, Texas, donated engineering plans and specs.

At this point, Elijah Rising is setting its sites on raising $7,000 for all of the PVC needed to connect the well to all of its buildings. “If we contract the work out, the labor will probably cost about $14,000. Still, $21,000 is far more manageable than what was needed to drill an entirely new commercial well,” French says.

“First, I want to thank National Driller for seeing the need to help in this worthy cause at Kendleton Farms and publishing it. Second, I want to thank everyone that participated in making this happen and all the others that offered their help from across this great nation. Third, a very special thanks to Craig Bussell for having the heart to do the well at Kendleton Farms,” Mulville says. “As mentioned in your March edition of National Driller, I certainly was dancing right on the site when I witnessed the first water coming from the new well. I am absolutely humbled and overwhelmed to see so many come to the rescue of the huge need at Kendleton Farms.”

French agrees that the new water well was immensely important to the mission of Elijah Rising and says they would still be without one if it weren’t for generous drilling professionals. “If National Driller magazine had not published the article about our need for a well, we would still be raising money for it and carrying water to each building from the one tiny residential well we found working. … Our gratitude to National Driller and Bussell & Sons can scarcely be articulated or expressed! You have given us a gift that will literally keep on giving.”