Source: Jerod Harris / Getty
The Flint water crisis began on April 25, 2014, when a state emergency manager decided to cut costs by switching the city’s water source from the Detroit water system to the Flint River. Here we are roughly five years later, and the people of Flint, Michigan still don’t have clean water to drink or bathe with. Jaden Smith, who has been in the forefront trying to help the people of the city, will be donating a second Water Box mobile filtration system.
The 20-year-old rapper made the announcement during an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on Friday (June 7) and surprised the talk show host by revealing he made the donation in her name. The portable filtration unit, when delivered, will be placed at Flint’s First Trinity Missionary Baptist Church, where residents can fill up on clean water Wednesdays and Thursdays from 11:30 a.m. until 1 p.m. The machine itself can filter 10 gallons of water in just 10 minutes.
Speaking with Degeneres, Smith revealed:
“We’ve kind of been tracking the progress of what’s been happening in Flint since the beginning and supplying Flint with clean water. Bottles of water aren’t the most efficient thing all the time, so we created this water filtration system, and you can fill up bigger containers of water. People can come with five or 10-gallon drums and fill up for free in 60 seconds at Trinity First Baptist Church.”
Smith donated the first Water Box filtration system back in March, and First Trinity Baptist Church has been a focal point where the people of Flint could get their clean water since the crisis began back in 2014. Shout out to Jaden taking more action than most of the adults in power. He’s a true icon living indeed. You can see him make the surprise announcement in the clip below:
