A New Standard for Water.

Rooted in the Oldest One.

It's 2013, I'm near the peak of Big Bear Mountain in Southern California, cupping my hands to drink water flowing directly from a natural spring. My friend and I drove all day, searching multiple springs, before finding this spot. Now, as the cold mountain water touches my lips, something shifts inside me. This isn't just hydration – it's like the water itself is alive, carrying something pure and essential that my body recognizes instantly. I say to my friend, "This is what water is supposed to be!"

As a suburban kid in Georgia, it took a hike with my grandfather, in the North Georgia mountains, to realize not all drinking water came from tap water and bottles. I watched in amazement as he drank directly from a clean mountain stream.

Years later, while living in California - passionate about rock climbing, yoga, the environment, and health -  one fateful day, I hear a talk and learn that all commercially available water is processed yet you can get raw spring water if you gather it yourself. I’m suddenly determined to try living spring water myself. I discover Find A Spring, a website mapping natural water sources across the country.

That's what led my friend and me on a quest to Big Bear Mountain to drink water in its original state – unprocessed, mineral-rich, and alive!
 

I started making regular 6 hour round trips and sharing the water with neighbors and friends. Word spread quickly. Soon people were coming to my house specifically for this water, asking if they could pay me for regular deliveries. I built a wooden trailer and bought dozens of five-gallon glass jugs, making the mountain drive whenever my community needed.

The operation grew faster than I ever imagined. I'd spend entire nights on the mountain, sometimes filling 120 five gallon jugs till 3 AM in snowy freezing conditions. The demand was outgrowing me, but it was about to face an even bigger challenge... 

One day, the US Forest Service rolls up while I’m collecting, and the next time I visited the spring, it was blocked by HUGE boulders! I felt horrible that others might also be cut off from the water, and I don’t doubt the Forest Service had good intentions, but nonetheless, suddenly I needed something that might be impossible to find: a new natural water source plus a more sustainable way to supply an ever growing community of people.

After months of driving the West Coast, I found Opal Springs in Oregon. The water flows out of volcanic lava tubes at 108,000 gallons per minute with fire agates that look like opal. It’s so pure the entire town drinks it unprocessed straight from their taps - it has won multiple contests for Oregon's best-tasting water.

I'd found what I was looking for. Not just exceptionally natural and safe water; but also alive water that came with a bottling facility for rinsing and filling. Many years later after extensive research and discernment, we discovered Blue Spring in Alabama to expand our operations to the East Coast.

Today, Alive Water serves thousands of customers across California, Texas, Florida, New York, and New Jersey (and soon to be more states). Our delivery system brings pristine, regionally sourced natural spring water directly to people’s doors in custom Italian glass containers, maintaining chilled temperature from source to home to preserve freshness.

We’ve come a long way in a decade, but haven’t forgotten how we got started. We believe the best option is always for people to connect directly with their local springs when possible – that's why we purchased the Find a Spring website that began my journey. Through our customer’s support we’ve been able to continue to improve the site and operate it as a non-profit entity.

That moment at Big Bear taught me that sometimes the very best thing we can do is honor the sacred gifts our Earth has been providing all along -  just as my grandfather showed me in those North Georgia mountains decades ago.