Since Hurricane Maria slammed into Puerto Rico back in September, the island nation has been struggling to recover – but though the process is slow and arduous, businesses and celebrities alike are offering up their own resources to help in the territory’s healing.
More importantly, this organization is ensuring that the territory’s residents have the most vital resource of all: clean water.
The Pure Foundation, a nonprofit charity that helps give communities access to clean drinking water, is distributing emergency Waterbox filtration systems across Puerto Rico.
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The Waterbox is a solar-powered, military-grade water filtration that can clean thousands of gallons of water. Pure Foundation volunteers spent a week on the island earlier this month and distributed Waterbox systems to several of the Boys and Girls Club facilities on the island.
The 12 Boys and Girls Clubs of Puerto Rico locations have served as community distribution points for food, water, and resources since the hurricane hit.
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This is not the first major outreach effort conducted by the Pure Foundation, either – back in 2016, the organization traveled to Flint, Michigan and installed dozens of Multipure drinking water systems throughout the Boys and Girls Club locations in the region. They also repaired and replaced much of the damaged plumbing that had been corroded by contaminants in the water supply.
Jennifer Rice, the executive vice president of the Pure Foundation, says that she and her team of volunteers are already planning a second outreach trip to Puerto Rico with the hopes of distributing even more Waterbox systems to the rest of the island.
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“We are currently in the process of scheduling our relief team’s next trip to Puerto Rico,” Rice told Good News Network. “We are hoping to be back on the island in 2-3 weeks or as quickly as logistics permit.”
“Getting flights booked, figuring out how to move lots of cargo with only 3 individuals, finding hotels willing to accept new guests and arrange funding with limited ground communication all bring their unique sets of challenges… but we conquered them once and we are just as committed, if not more so, to conquering them a second time.”
(CHECK OUT footage of the group’s trip to Flint, Michigan in the video below)
Power Up With Positivity: Click To Share The News With Your Friends (Photo by The Pure Foundation)