Ruthanna Terreri has been fighting for the planet since she was eight.

When construction threatened the woods she played in, she organized neighborhood kids in a protest: "We had our forts there and buried our pets there," she recalls. "We stood in front of the bulldozers holding signs. From that point on, I've always been involved [in environmental work] on some level."

Today, Ruthanna's activism continues-with global reach. She is the founder and president of the Hope Water Foundation and H2ope Water, Inc.

H2ope is a corporation that funds the non-profit foundation, whose mission is to guarantee clean, safe water to people everywhere.

Based in Madison, Ruthanna launched H2ope's first product last May. H2ope bottled water ("The World's Kindest Water") funnels 100 percent of net profits from sales to partners that include Water for People and River Network.

"Water is a basic of life. There is no life without water and we're running out of it," Ruthanna says, adding that clean water has replaced climate change as the most important environmental issue of our time.

According to the United Nations, by 2020 as many as one in four people globally could lack access to clean, safe water. Ruthanna says the problem extends to the U.S., where access to safe water can be affected by industrial or agricultural pollution or decaying infrastructure.

H2ope water, which comes from a sustainable source in Alton, Virginia, retails for about $1.50 and is sold by either the bottle or the case. It's available at more than 100 locations locally, including the Schoolhouse Deli, Bishop's Orchards, The Saybrook Point Inn, Chamard Vineyards, R.J. Julia Café, and Robert's Food Center.

This year, Ruthanna hopes to sell 900,000 bottles of H2ope-she calls it "putting the mission into people's hands."

It will help that deals are in the works with Compass Foods, which distributes to specialty and natural food markets nationwide, and with Whole Foods Market.

Before founding the charity three years ago, Ruthanna was heavily involved in the community, serving on the board of the Guilford Art Center and active in the arts program at The Country School, where her 12-year-old son Jack (she's extremely proud of the 12-year-old, and that he supports Hope) is a student.

But she stopped it all to start what she calls "a business to just do good."

It takes up "all my time, 24-7," Ruthanna says, adding that the organization gets by mostly on volunteer help. With one paid employee, there are also interns from local high schools and colleges, including Brown and Fairfield universities and the University of Bridgeport. Two girls have even helped out as a "mitzvah," or act of human kindness, as part of bat mitzvah ceremonies.

Ruthanna, who grew up in New Jersey and moved to Madison at 12, began her career in the entertainment industry, working for Walt Disney and Warner Bros. studios. Her lifelong passion for the environment didn't become a part of her working life until she became head of marketing for the Sierra Legal Defense Fund in the 1990s.

In charge of rebranding the organization, Ruthanna changed the organization's name to Earthjustice and used her Hollywood connections to rejuvenate the non-profit.

"I was able to bring all my connections from my old world in to the new world and it was the most satisfying thing in the whole wide world," she says. "That's where I belonged."

After Sierra, Ruthanna became a mom, moved back to Madison, and started a photography business, but all it took was bottle of water for her passion for the environment to take front and center again.

"I walked into a Starbucks one day, picked up a bottle of Ethos Water, looked it up, and said, 'They're making millions and giving five cents.'"

That got Ruthanna thinking. She knew she wanted to do more. It wasn't long before she'd founded Hope, with a plan to give as much as possible to create change.

"We wanted to give as much money as we could to our beneficiaries. Everything we've done so far has been a volunteer effort."

Recently, the organization cut its first check to those beneficiaries, which she says "felt really good. That's what we've been working toward for three years and we did it!"

H2ope water is sold in bottles that are 100 percent biodegradable and recyclable, a combination that took two years to find.

"We wanted to go with 100 percent recycled plastic and 100 percent biodegradable, but it doesn't exist. We didn't want to hurt the environment that we're trying to help," Ruthanna says.

Although bottling water can be problematic within the environmental movement, Ruthanna says she hopes to use the demand for bottled water to help people.

"It's such a controversial thing, but let's leverage that market and use it for good."

For the future, she'll keep working hard at the business of doing good.

"Long term, I just hope to keep building and to come out with other products, all branded H2ope," Ruthanna says, describing a refillable container, a pitcher, even a H2ope water kiosk for the marketplace.

"Whenever anyone reaches to put water in their body, it will be branded H2ope. That's the dream."

To make a donation or for more info the Hope Water Foundation, call Ruthanna Terreri at 203-980-9798 or visit worldskindestwater.org or follow H2ope on Facebook or Twitter.