Students from Alabama road-trip to Capital City to assist in water crisis

JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) - A group of teenagers from Alabama took a day trip to the Capital City Saturday and distributed about 15,000 water bottles to those in need.

The teens are part of a leadership group in Florence, Alabama called, “The Rescue Me Project.”

They were able to collect the cases of water through fundraisers and donations from family members.

Saturday, they rode nearly 300 miles to Grace Inspirations Church in Jackson where they loaded up cases of water into people’s cars and also dropped some off at nearby apartments.

A mentor with the group said the students chose to do this as their community service project.

“We look for a charity project that we can work on, and we noticed the water situation that’s going on down here. We even looked at some of the places that we could buy water from, and some of this stuff is double the price of what it is in Alabama. So, we really thought that we could make a big impact by bringing this water down,” said Aaron Plasters, a mentor with the group.

“Today’s my birthday, but I wanted to come out here and give to people rather than take from people,” said Khegn Clark, a student with the group. “You want to give 50% more than what you receive.”

The distribution site comes just three days before the state of emergency over Jackson’s water system comes to an end.

Want more WLBT news in your inbox? Click here to subscribe to our newsletter.

Copyright 2022 WLBT. All rights reserved.