It may be some time before all responsible parties come clean about the series of events that led to the water crisis in Flint, Michigan — but in the meantime, residents are getting aid from an unlikely source: Hollywood. California-based beverage company AQUAhydrate, owned in part by Sean “Diddy” Combs and Mark Wahlberg, has pledged a whopping one million bottles of water to assist with the situation until it is resolved.
In case you haven’t heard, dangerously high levels of lead have been detected in Flint’s water since officials opted to begin drawing the city’s water from the Flint River instead of the Detroit municipal system as a cost-saving measure (shudder). Not surprisingly, many organizations have now stepped in, including the Red Cross and the Michigan State Emergency Management and Homeland Security, which are working closely with AQUAhydrate to integrate its sizeable donation into the relief efforts.
“The AQUAhydrate team is doing everything it can to help with this issue,” Diddy explained. “Mark and I made an initial pledge to donate and are committed to the continued aid to Flint residents as long as they need it. We hope this commitment will inspire others to get involved as well.”
So far, 5,000 cases of the water bottles are en route to Flint and should arrive by mid-week. In the meantime, however, Diddy and Wahlberg are hardly taking a break. Instead, they’ve been busy urging their famous friends to join them in their cause by raising public awareness and making donations. So far they’ve garnered support from Detroit-area rapper Eminem as well as hip-hop star Wiz Khalifa, which Diddy confirmed via Twitter this morning.
Sean Diddy CombsRT the news! @Mark_Wahlberg @Eminem @WizKhalifa & I are donating 1 MILLION @Aquahydrate bottles!! #FlintWaterCrisis
But these are hardly the only stars who’ve joined in the relief efforts — in fact, many musicians have already kicked in. On Jan. 16, Cher partnered with Icelandic Glacial to send the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan 181,440 bottles of water. Then on Friday, Pearl Jam announced it would donate $300,000 to the United Way of Genesee County’s Flint Water Fund and encouraged others (who might not have $300K burning a hole in their pockets) to pitch in on CrowdRise.
Rapper Big Sean, who grew up one hour outside Flint, personally donated $10,000 through his charity The Sean Anderson Foundation and hip-hop artist Meek Mill reportedly donated an unspecified amount of money to the Flint Child and Family Health Development Fund and, like Cher, donated bottles of water to the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan (though he only clocked in 60,000).
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