In two weeks, multiple community organizations and city leaders helped gather approximately 1,200 cases of bottled water to be shipped to residents of Flint, Michigan, who are dealing with extremely high lead levels in the city's water supply.
Chanteau Wilson of Razor Trucking Company in Starkville was inspired to host the drive after seeing celebrities and out of state officials send in trucks of water to affected residents.
"I thought, 'Why can't I send a truck up there?'" Wilson said. "The city took the idea and we ran with it."
With the help of Starkville resident Harold Purnell, the pair reached out to Starkville Police Chief Frank Nichols to help coordinate the effort as a citywide event.
"We are honored to be able to help those in need in Flint with this unfortunate crisis," Nichols said. "It's not up to us to judge how it got there but it's their community right now that is in need and one day we could be in need."
Wilson offered to send a Razor Trucking Company 18-wheeler to Flint at no cost to the city. Through the two week drive, some donors included: MSU Athletics, Mount Bell Baptist Church in Louisville, the Carrington Nursing Home, Vowell's Marketplace, Kroger and Walmart.
"I think it speaks volumes about our community that the shared humanity we have with people from a distant place causes people in our community to spring into action," said Mayor Parker Wiseman.
The Flint water crisis began in 2014 following the switch from Lake Huron to the Flint River for the city's water supply. Since then, independent monitoring groups have reported extremely high lead levels in the tap water.
The EPA requires action be taken after samples report 0.015 parts per billion amounts of lead. One part per billion could correspond with a single penny in $10 million, but high lead amounts caused around 12,000 residents to report extremely high levels in blood tests. Lead poisoning can lead to headaches, anemia, seizures, coma and death, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Flint's water supply reported 5 ppb, corresponding to over 100 of 300 independently-tested samples to show high amounts of lead contamination in 2015, according to flintwaterstudy.org. Some higher samples in Flint reported anywhere from 15 ppb to 100 ppb, the study showed.
Two class action lawsuits have been filed against Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and multiple Flint officials. The complaints allege officials acted "recklessly and negligently" which led to serious injuries from lead poisoning and autoimmune disorders to skin lesions, among other health complaints.
A former Flint resident, Wilson had previously sent water to family members living in the downtown area after moving to Starkville, she said.
The shipment of water will leave Starkville for Flint within the next day, Wilson said.
"It's truly a community effort and a selfless act of giving," Wiseman said.