SISTER LAKES — Though she was sitting at a bare table inside the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians’ language and culture building, Sister Lakes resident Jeannie Mollett allowed her memories to take her back to the dry, dusty deserts of New Mexico.

“It’s so hot there. If you think it gets hot here in the summer, you have no idea how hot it gets there,” she recalled from a trip she took to a Navajo reservation in New Mexico. “They need the water, and it is so hard for them to get it.”

Ever since that trip, Mollett, an elder with the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, has been raising money to buy water systems for the Navajo people in New Mexico. So far, she has raised $20,000, enough to buy four water systems. Even now, Mollett said that she will continue to raise money to help the Navajo people.

Mollett’s story begins even before her trip, to a morning when she was casually watching the news. A segment came on that revealed more than 40 percent of the families living in the area did not have access to running water, were miles from wells and that the Navajo are 67 times more likely than the average American to live without running water or a toilet. Water is difficult for the Navajo people to get because the land was used as a uranium mine for nearly 50 years, which has left the land contaminated, meaning that wells need to be dug deeper than a typical well.

The news report went on to tell the story of Darlene Arviso, a Navajo woman who drives a water tank trunk in order to bring clean water to her people. Once Mollett saw the broadcast, she knew she had to help the cause.

“My eyes filled with tears as I watched [the broadcast],” Mollett said. “It was heartbreaking.”

First Mollett wanted to buy a second water truck for Arviso to use, but Mollett looked into the cost of a water truck — upwards of $300,000 — she knew that wouldn’t be an achievable goal. Instead, she decided to raise money for water systems for homes in remote areas of the reservation. Each water system runs on solar power and costs $4,500.

“I knew that I couldn’t get $300,000,” Mollett said. “But I knew that I could ask a lot of people for a lesser amount, which could get us the water systems.”

Mollett wrote to each of the 12 tribes in the state of Michigan, asking for aid in the form of $10,000. Through that effort she raised $20,000, and is still planning to write to more tribes in the hope of helping more people.

Before she did that though, she had to see the conditions for herself. So, with a friend, Mollett drove down to the reservation in New Mexico to meet with Arriso.

Mollett described seeing the people, who were living in poverty, saving water anyway they could.

“If they were doing the dishes, they wouldn’t take the water to the sink like we would,” Mollett said. “They would save it, maybe for a full day, and use dish water to wipe down the kitchen or whatever else needed to be cleaned. They did that with all the water they had.”

What Mollett saw on the reservation reinforced in her the need to help out the Navajo people. She said that her desire to help comes from the fact that she has been blessed in her life and wants to use that for the good of others.

“I understand these people. I’ve been poor,” she said. “But I have been so fortunate in my later years, and I want to help those who haven’t been as fortunate as me.”

Mollett said she is planning another visit to the New Mexico reservation soon and that she can’t wait to see how the donations she raised will help the Navajo people. She said she will continue to fundraise and has two projects coming up related to the water systems fundraising. Though she would not say what those projects were, she promised they would be revealed soon.

“I’m not done here,” Mollett said. “There is so much to be done to help these people.”