As part of the awareness efforts during World Water Week (March 16 through March 22), UNICEF is doing their part to try to provide clean water to children in need with their annual Tap Project.

The project started last year in New York and hsa expanded to a national effort this year. The concept is pretty simple; participating restaurants ask customers to donate $1 for the tap water normally served for free. In turn, for every dollar donated, UNICEF is able to provide clean drinking water to a child for $40 days. Talk about being able to stretch a dollar; there's a good chance you paid more for that for our afternoon latte. In fact, with the $4 spent on a coffee shop specialty, a child in a developing country could drink safely for nearly half of the year!

Clay Aiken has been a UNICEF spokesperson for while now (in fact he may have stepped off the American Idol stage and right into the office of a UNICEF representative) and is encouraging restaurants and patrons alike to get involved with the Tap Project. If UNICEF is going to reach their goal of reducing the number of people with no access to clean water by 50 per cent by 2015 like they say they hope to, they're definitely going to need some help.

Hit the jump to visit the Tap Project site, where you'll find a list of participating restaurants listed by city or where you can donate to the project online.

» Tap Project