She’s spent her career in the spotlight, so it might come as a surprise that when faced with having to spend the day lobbying members of Congress and talking with staffers and reporters, singer, songwriter and actress Mandy Moore was dealing with a wee bit of stage fright.<\/p>\n
“It’s sort of overwhelming, but, yeah, I would say there are probably more nerves attached to doing something like this than my regular day job,” Moore confessed to Yeas & Nays Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Moore spent her Capitol Hill debut talking about the world’s lack of safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene as an ambassador for the global health organization PSI. She met lawmakers including Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., and spoke to a packed room about her April 2009 trip to the Sudan.<\/p>\n
“When we arrived at the Nile I felt completely overwhelmed, the river was full of people bathing, washing clothes and animals, so many animals, drinking and urinating in the same water that [people] would later be drinking — their river was their tap, their shower, their bath, they had no alternative,” she explained, segueing into how modern water-cleansing products can help solve this problem.<\/p>\n
The nervous non-diva also reiterated her message with fashion. Her T-shirt — that she paired with a navy blazer — displayed the message, “443,000,000 School Days Lost To Water-Related Illness.”<\/p>\n
“Here on Capitol Hill, it’s pretty hard for us to imagine what it’s like to face illness every time we are thirsty,” the actress and songstress told the crowd.<\/p>\n