Today we’d like to introduce you to Jacob Neimeier.
Hi Jacob, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
My story really starts in 2011 during my junior year at Purdue University, when I went on a student mission trip to Haiti — just one year after the devastating 2010 earthquake. At the time, I was studying Agricultural and Biological Engineering with a focus on water resources, so I was already being exposed academically to the scale of problems like poverty and the global water crisis. But there is a massive difference between reading about suffering in a textbook and witnessing it with your own two eyes.
On our first day there, while traveling through Port Au Prince, I watched a woman walk from her tent — the city was still largely in ruins, blue UN emergency tents as far as the eye could see — carrying a bucket to a canal running through the city. She filled that bucket with water that looked like chocolate milk. Animals were defecating in it. People were washing clothes and dumping waste into it. And I knew that was the water her family was going to drink and cook with. I knew it was going to make them sick. That image has never left me. It never will.
That moment planted a seed. I didn’t run home and start a nonprofit the next day — I knew I needed more experience, more credibility, more of a network to do this right. So after graduating in 2012, I moved to Dallas and spent years working as a water resources engineering consultant, building real technical expertise and slowly developing what would eventually become a full business plan. Then in 2015, a project literally fell into our laps — friends who had been on a mission trip to Peru told me about a community of 7,000 people in Monte Castillo, Piura, whose children and elderly were suffering and dying without access to clean water. And something in me said: this is it.
On June 13, 2017, Vera Aqua Vera Vita incorporated as a nonprofit NGO. The name is Latin for “True Water, True Life” — and that’s exactly what we set out to deliver. In 2019, I took a full leap of faith and left my engineering career to run VAVV full time. That same year, our Water Treatment Facility in Monte Castillo was commissioned and began providing clean, reliable water to all 7,000+ people in the community — and it’s been running sustainably ever since.
But we didn’t stop there. Today we have four active clean water projects underway across the Piura region of Peru, and the work keeps getting more meaningful with every passing month. One momentous milestone was that in June of 2025, after two years of partnership with the community of Las Mercedes KM11, we were finally able to put a Water Tanker Truck into operation — delivering clean, reliable water directly to families in that community for the very first time in their history. Over 1,200 people. For the first time. Ever. Those families had been walking miles to a water source contaminated with eleven different pollutants. Now they have a truck pulling up and filling their tanks with clean water, and families who had left are literally moving back home because of it. We’re also now moving into construction on a permanent water system for Las Mercedes KM11 — the Regional Government of Piura signed the funding agreement in February 2026 — and we have additional projects in La Merced, Las Mercedes, and Totoral Bajo in various stages of development.
The mission has never changed from that moment watching that woman at the canal. We exist to walk alongside people who are simply lacking in opportunity and education — not incapable, not powerless — and empower them to go from merely surviving to truly thriving. In body and in soul. That’s what gets me up every morning!
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Was the road smooth? …yes and no. The mission itself has always felt supernaturally guided. The right people and the right projects have had a way of showing up exactly when we needed them. When I look back at the breadcrumb trail, I genuinely believe God has been writing this story more than I have.
But make no mistake — this road has been hard. The single greatest ongoing challenge has been fundraising, and I’ll be blunt about it because I think a lot of mission-driven people romanticize the work and underestimate what it takes to sustain it. You can have the best engineering, the best relationships, the most tried and true model in the world — and none of it moves without funding. That lesson slowed our growth more than anything else early on, and building that muscle has been a years-long process.
Then there are the on-the-ground realities of international development that nobody really prepares you for — land rights processes that take years, government permitting timelines that don’t bend for urgency, bureaucratic delays that test your patience in ways that are genuinely humbling. Our Las Mercedes KM11 project took two full years of perseverance before a single drop of clean water was ever delivered.
What I’ve learned through all of it is that the obstacles aren’t interruptions to the mission — they’re part of it. The communities we serve have been navigating impossible circumstances for generations. The least I can do is be willing to sit in the difficulty with them, for as long as it takes, until we find a way through together.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Vera Aqua Vera Vita (Latin for “True Water, True Life”) is an international nonprofit NGO on a mission to bring sustainable clean water and sanitation solutions to communities in developing countries. Right now we’re focused in the Piura region of rural Peru, where we have four active projects at various stages of development, and we’ve already provided consistent access to clean water for over 7,000 people in the community of Monte Castillo — a system that has been running sustainably for over five years. Most recently, we deployed a Water Tanker Truck in Las Mercedes KM11 that delivered clean water to over 1,200 people for the very first time in their community’s history, and we’re now moving into construction of a permanent water system there with a signed government funding agreement in hand.
But here’s what I think truly sets us apart, and what I’m most proud of: we don’t just build infrastructure. We build people.
Most water organizations show up, construct something, and leave. We take a fundamentally different approach. We see the people we serve not as incapable or powerless — but as people simply lacking in opportunity and education. So from day one, we walk alongside the community in every step of the process. We train local Water Committees. We help them establish governance structures and financial controls. We empower them to own, operate, and sustain the system themselves long after we’re gone. That’s what makes our solutions generational rather than just temporary.
We also specialize in something that very few organizations in this space integrate — and that’s the spiritual dimension. We believe that human beings don’t just need clean water to thrive. They need to be nourished in body and soul. So woven into everything we do is a missionary spirit and the steadfast conviction that every person carries the dignity of Christ, and that our role is to recognize and serve that dignity in a practical, tangible way. We call it tapping into the physical and spiritual nature of water, and it’s the heartbeat of everything we do.
We specialize in W.A.S.H. — Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene — community development, and we bring a rare combination to the table: rigorous professional engineering, genuine relational ministry, and a community-empowerment model that ensures the work lasts.
What I want people to know about our brand is simple: we are not a charity that asks you to feel good about writing a check. We are a movement that invites you to be part of something eternal — because access to clean water isn’t just a development issue. It’s a justice issue. It’s a dignity issue. And for us, it’s a deeply spiritual one.
Are there any apps, books, podcasts, blogs or other resources you think our readers should check out?
The resources that fuel me most aren’t traditional business books or productivity hacks — they’re the ones that feed my inner life first. I’ve learned that when my foundation is solid, everything built on top of it holds.
On the podcast front, I’m a huge fan of The BeatiDudes. It’s a faith-based show for men, so I’ll be upfront — it’s not for everyone. But even if that world isn’t yours, what they’ve built is genuinely worth paying attention to. Three guys having honest, vulnerable conversations about fatherhood, purpose, failure, and identity, wrapped in enough humor that it never feels heavy. In a world where male friendship tends to stay pretty surface-level, that kind of authentic fraternity is rare — and honestly, it’s something everyone needs.
For reading, I keep coming back to the lives of the saints. Strip away the theology and what you have is an extraordinary collection of stories about real people who faced real doubt, real adversity, and real fear — and chose to answer their calling anyway, often at enormous personal cost. That does something to your leadership mindset that a management book simply can’t touch. One line I carry with me everywhere, from St. Catherine of Siena: “If everyone was who God created them to be, we would set the world ablaze.” I love that. The core idea is universal — know who you are, show up fully as that person. The world needs it.
And on the app side, I have to give a shoutout to HabitShare. Dead simple habit tracker with optional accountability partners. I use it to protect my morning and evening routines, and I genuinely can’t recommend it enough. Whatever your non-negotiable daily rituals are — whether that’s for yourself, your family, or anything else — guard them fiercely. They’re the foundation everything else is built on.
Pricing:
- $50 donation – provides one person with access to clean water for generations
Contact Info:
- Website: https://GiveTrueWater.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/veraaquaveravita/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/veraaquaveravita/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacob-niemeier-p-e/
- Twitter: https://x.com/VerAquaVeraVita
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/veraaquaveravita
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/vera-aqua-vera-vita-murphy
- Other: https://veraaquaveravita.org/book-jacob-niemeier-for-greatness
