Photo: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for AFI
ABC News – Cher has been out of the spotlight lately, but she’s doing good work behind the scenes. The singer and actress is teaming up with Icelandic Glacial spring water to donate more than 181 thousand bottles of water to the residents of Flint, Michigan.
President Obama has declared a federal emergency in the city, where the residents haven’t had clean water to drink since 2014. In April of that year, the city started drawing its water from the Flint River, rather than from Detroit. The water has since been linked to a number of serious illnesses, and this past September, a group of doctors urged the city to stop using the Flint River after finding high levels of lead in the blood of children.
Cher, who’d been following the story and has been critical of Michigan’s lack of response, reached out to a friend who is an investor in Icelandic Glacial. The company committed to doubling Cher’s purchase, and the water — 181,440 bottles — will arrive at the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan on Wednesday. It will be distributed to community centers, food banks and fire houses in low-income housing areas.
Calling the situation “a tragedy of staggering proportion,” Cher said in a statement that it’s “shocking that it’s happening in the middle of our country.”
She adds, “I cannot wait for the water to get there to help these people who have been poisoned because the water they’ve been getting out of their taps has been polluted for so long and remains that way without the state or the federal government stepping in with any substantial plan to resolve this problem.”
The diva on Twitter that she feels a personal connection to Michigan because her former husband and musical partner, the late Sonny Bono, was born in that state.