A Cedar Rapids church is stockpiling bottled water to help Flint, Michigan families deal with that city’s lead-contaminated municipal water supply. Bottled water cases are being stacked at Mt Zion Baptist Church where Damian Epps is the Senior Pastor.
“My plan is to leave next Monday, on the 15th, and hopefully we can have more than 100,000 bottles of water,” he says. “Take a team of people there and at least spend a day-and-a-half or so passing out water, but also assessing their plight.”
Epps says he’s motivated after experiencing Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and then having seeing the church devastated by Cedar Rapids’ 2008 flooding.
“I know that we can’t fix the problem, fix the whole problem, but at least we can start with bringing some solutions,” he says.
Epps says bottled water donations to the church stockroom are coming from as far away as Des Moines, Davenport, and Peoria, Illinois.
Now, he’s hoping for a truck to get the water to Michigan next Monday.