Walmart, Coca-Cola, Nestlé and PepsiCo Come Together to Provide Flint, Mich., Public Schools with Water for Students Through the End of the Year

January 26, 2016 /3BL Media/ - Walmart today announced support for the Flint, Mich., community through donations, education and online services. Walmart, Coca-Cola, Nestlé and PepsiCo will collectively donate water to meet the daily needs of over 10,000 school children for the balance of the calendar year. That translates to 176 truckloads, or up to 6.5 million bottles of water, to help with relief efforts for those affected by the water crisis in Flint.

In addition to the water donation, the companies are encouraging others to support the Flint community by working with Good360, where nonprofits operating in Flint are listing their needs online.  Walmart and its suppliers will continue to work closely in the Flint community and are encouraging the public to get involved by visiting www.good360.org/flint to make donations that will go directly to local nonprofits serving the community.

Walmart previously helped fund Good360’s disaster recovery platform through a $1 million grant announced on the 10-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Walmart and Sam’s Club will continue serving the community through its stores and clubs, where associates in pharmacies can share basic health tips and offer information on resources available in the community.

“The water crisis is personal to us here in Flint. Those affected include our own associates, customers and their families,” said Beth Harris, store manager at Walmart, Flint, Mich. Our associates are proud to be a part of the effort to help our friends and neighbors.”

“At Walmart, we take pride in using our strengths to help communities like Flint during times of crisis, as we’ve done around the world in times of need,” said Dan Bartlett, executive vice president of Corporate Affairs for Walmart. “We’re working to ensure that the children of Flint, the city’s most vulnerable citizens, have access to safe water.”

Walmart has already donated 14 trucks of water, or 504,000 bottles, and 1,792 water filters to the Flint community since July 2015.  Coca-Cola has donated nearly 78,720 bottles of Dasani to local food banks and foundations and to approximately 40 associates living in the affected area. Nestlé Waters North America has already donated five truckloads, or more than 190,000 bottles, to Flint community organizations since October 2015. PepsiCo has donated almost 95,000 bottles of water to Flint and the families of the company’s employees over the past four months.

“We are grateful for Walmart and their suppliers' support during this crisis,” said Bilal Tawwab, Flint Community Schools Superintendent. “With their generous support, District students will have access to clean drinking water, and more importantly, the ability to focus on their education.”

“PepsiCo believes that access to safe water is a basic human right,” said Tony West, executive vice president, PepsiCo Government Affairs. “We are committed to supporting the communities where we operate, and our collective action today will allow Flint school children and their parents to focus on their education rather than where they can find clean water.”

“Nestlé Waters is proud to team up with Walmart to expand our ongoing work to provide clean, safe bottled water for Flint residents,” said Cameron Lorrain, plant manager for the Michigan-based Ice Mountain® and Nestlé Pure Life® brand operations. “We will continue to work in partnership with other companies, local officials and relief organizations to ensure that families in Flint have access to a steady supply of safe drinking water.”

“We are committed to supporting Walmart and other groups in water relief efforts for the Flint community,” said Lori George Billingsley, vice president of Community Relations, Coca-Cola North America. “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. Over the past 19 months, we have donated bottled water, volunteer hours and supported our employees in the affected area and will continue to look for ways to help meet the community’s needs.” 

Walmart has a long history of providing aid in times of disaster by donating emergency supplies, such as food and water, home and personal products, and by creating ways for associates and community members to locate and help one another. Over the past 10 years, Walmart and the Walmart Foundation have provided more than $50 million in cash, in addition to in kind support, in response to events such as typhoons in Mexico and the Philippines, tsunamis in Asia, floods in the U.K. and Canada, tornadoes in the U.S., Africa’s Ebola epidemic and many other tragedies. Walmart and the Walmart Foundation also invested $7.2 million over the past 10 years to build community resiliency.