West Philadelphia man & friends take 50k bottles of water to Flint

WEST PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- U.S. Senate Democrats say they will address the water crisis in Flint, Michigan as part of a bi-partisan energy bill.

They say the idea is to protect children from water that is deadly or poisonous.

A West Philadelphia man and his friends have taken their own action to make an impact on the Flint water crisis.

It started with a phone call.

"They said, 'Hey Neo, we got to do something for Flint, Michigan.' I said, 'What do you want to do?'" Nehemiah Davis said.

What they'd do - despite a blizzard, despite 600 miles of roadway, and despite little money - is pack two huge trucks with bottled water and deliver it to the people of Flint, who've been poisoned by lead tainted water.

They made it happen in just a couple of days.

"People came up and, literally, we had 500 to 600 cases on the ground, that we wound up renting another U-Haul," Davis said.

Nehemia and his partners had an initial goal of delivering 10,000 bottles of water to the needy people of Flint, but instead he delivered 50,000 bottles.

"For us to be able to provide them water so their kids could bathe, so their kids could drink, so their kids could brush their teeth with good water, it was just awesome," Davis said.

Davis calls himself an author and philanthropist and his Michigan journey was literally a grass roots effort.

$5 here. $10 there. Person after person donating a case.

Detroit Pistons Marcus Morris who hails from Philadelphia heard about the effort and helped with transportation costs.

"I had no clue it was going to be so expensive. We assumed it would be cheap. Just gas alone cost us $1,000," Davis said.

More water bottles will also be heading to Michigan. A friend of Davis will deliver them.

And he and his friends know firsthand the people of Flint need more.

"What we did was a great start, but they need a lot more help," Davis said.