Jaden Smith’s JUST Water company is furthering its mission to make the world a better place by way of providing ethically sourced and bottled water to the masses.
As reported, this past weekend, the 20-year-old partnered with Michigan’s First Trinity Missionary Baptist Church to help provide clean water to the city of Flint by launching a new mobile filtration system designed to help filter lead and other pollutants out of the water.
The system, which is being dubbed “The Water Box,” was developed and engineered by Smith’s foundation, 501CTHREE, in partnership with the church. This was made possible due to additional support from organizations including The Last Kilometer, Rethink H2O and Black Millennials for Flint. The system can fill a five-gallon jug in 30 seconds and is a smaller-scale version of the filtration system JUST Water uses in Glens Falls, New York.
Flint has been having a crisis since its main water source was contaminated in April 2014 and has made countless national headlines ever since. Last year, in April 2018, Governor Rick Snyder announced the end to Flint’s free bottled water program by declaring the tap water safe, despite scientists and residents claiming otherwise. The city continues to struggle in its recovery with many noting a decline in bottled water donations.
As reported, First Trinity Missionary Baptist Church has distributed over 5 million bottles of water to residents over the years and continues to work to find a longterm solution.
“We want to continue to service Flint and to put more ‘Water Boxes’ here and just to talk to the community and say, ‘Hey, how can we help? What’s next? What can we do to make life easier?’” Smith said on Saturday (March 2) at the mobile filtration system’s launch. “We don’t want to disrupt what’s happening with the donation of bottled water to Flint. We just want to be the backbone in case something happens to that supply of donated bottled water.”
In addition to Jaden Smith spearheading the initiative, his mother, Jada Pinkett-Smith, announced that she’ll be donating a second Water Box system to Flint, as well.
Smith has been working alongside First Trinity for over a year now after finding out their supply of donated bottled water had been dwindling.