Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Nestlé and Walmart plan to donate 6.5 million bottles of bottled water for 10,000 schoolchildren in Flint, Mich., the companies said Tuesday.
The city is in the middle of a crisis after a switch to the Flint River for drinking water led to high levels of lead in city water.
The companies said the new donations come on top of others they have already made. Walmart has donated 504,000 bottles and 1,792 water filters since July 2015; Coca-Cola has donated more than 78,000 bottles of Dasani to local food banks and foundations; Nestlé has donated more than 190,000 bottles to Flint community organizations since October 2015; and Pepsi has donated almost 95,000 bottles of water over the past four months.
“We are grateful for Walmart and their suppliers’ support during this crisis,” Bilal Tawwab, Flint Community Schools Superintendent, said in a statement. “With their generous support, District students will have access to clean drinking water, and more importantly, the ability to focus on their education.”
Lori George Billingsley, vice president of community relations, for Atlanta-based Coke said in a statement, “We are committed to supporting Walmart and other groups in water relief efforts for the Flint community. This critical initiative to provide bottled water to the two Flint school districts builds on our heritage of supporting disaster relief work around the world.”
