Flint is Not Forgotten
posted by Jelia Hepner | May 4, 2016 | In NewsOver the past couple of weeks a local church called Heal The Land Outreach Ministries on 414 Hall Street has collected over 2,000 bottles of water for the victims of Flint, Michigan.
Pastor Larry Wright along with many people of his congregation decided that even though they donated water when the Flint crisis was first reported, the victims still needed help.
“I have friends that live out there, so when I check up on them and they inform me that they still struggle with getting clean water, it breaks my heart,” stated Pastor Larry Wright.
While getting choked up and emotional, Pastor Wright further explained that even though Flint has switched back to their main water supply, many houses still have pipes that have filled with lead due to the tainted water flowing through them. Pastor Chisholm stated that it would take time and resources from the government to go to each home and replace or clean out the pipes.
Another concern of the Pastor is the fact that price of water bottles are rising due to the extremely high demand of water that in Flint.
“It’s sad because a lot of low income families cannot afford to keep buying gallons of water everyday just to eat and bath with. That’s why it was placed on my heart to do another drive and to keep doing water drives for these victims who need our help, especially the children,” Chisholm stated.
People from all over North Carolina have been stopping at this local church to drop anywhere from 1 to 2 cases of water up to as much as 200 cases of bottled water.
Trey Martin, a member of the community, was one of the men who volunteered to help transport the water to Flint on Wal-Mart distribution trucks. He stated he was so happy about this church donating huge amounts of water.
His mother lives in Flint, and he stated that she still has to boil water before using it and sometimes she feels like that they are forgotten about.
“It’s hard to hear my mother on the phone saying things like ‘America has forgotten about us.’ It just breaks me down a little,” said Martin. “She feels that people think the crisis is over but it’s not. It’s far from over, and they need as much water supply as we can help them with. Because if it was us, we would want as much help as possible until the end.”
All donations from the water drive were loaded onto two Wal-Mart Distribution trucks and were delivered to the victims on April 20th. The church plans on doing more water drives in the future.
“We will not stop helping until the crisis is over and even then we will find something else to help with,” declared Pastor Larry Wright.
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