Chicago Area Sending Thousands Of Cases Of Water To Flint
(CBS) --Bottled water is being offered by the cases to residents in Flint, Michigan and Chicago is just one of the many cities, pitching in to help.
CBS 2's Sandra Torres reports from Oak Lawn to Hyde Park, several groups made it their mission to collect water bottles and thanks to those efforts, more than 11,000 cases of water are now on their way to Michigan.
One by one, a group in Oak Lawn group filled up a U-Haul truck with cases of bottled water for Flint.
Podcast
Hours earlier, they packed an 18-wheeler with 1,000 cases, but there wasn't enough room.
"We're loading the semi and we're like wait a second, we don't have room left so now we have all this water left, at least another 300 cases, that we had to go to U-Haul," said Kathy Cullick.
The group began collecting donations last Sunday and in less than a week-- they came up with about 2,000 water bottles.
"People responded with 1,000 cases and I matched another 1,000 cases," said Frank Mancari.
About 30 minutes away in Hyde Park, a similar situation, with 9,000 cases of water collected.
"This is my second trip," said Arthur Charleston. "It was 30 cases this time and 40 cases about two hours ago.
"I knew it would be big, but I didn't think it would be this big," said Chicago firefighter Eric Washington.
It was Washington who made a call for donations to show Flint, Michigan that Chicago is here to help.
"When we see people that are in need, we are not afraid to step up and that's just what happened," Washington said.
Other locations have been collecting water for Flint as well. In Oak Lawn, Mancari's car dealership at 4630 W. 95th Street is accepting donations again on Sunday from 12 to 4 p.m. For more information on that water dropoff, click here.
