The anger over the notorious Trump border wall GoFundMe, at $18 million at the time of this writing, has taken on multiple forms, and some have been more helpful than others. There are the troll campaigns like the tall ladders one, the wall around Colorado or the “Support Tunnels Under Trump’s Wall” fundraiser about shovels... and then you have campaigns trying to get clean drinking water to the residents of Flint, Michigan. It has been four years since the Flint water crisis and yet, the people of Flint still need to use bottled water.
Little Miss Flint, real name Mari Copeny, is an 11-year-old activist (and future president) who has been raising awareness about the Flint water crisis and its effects on children since 2014. Her latest project has been about raising $125,000 for bottled water over the last eight months. PR consultant and activist Lance Cooper, who launched the #SaveFlintChallenge hashtag on Twitter and is campaigning for a lesser amount than Little Miss Flint, has been trying for six.
Both of their campaigns have been languishing for months -- Little Miss Flint described her fundraising efforts in a tweet as “struggling” -- until the Border Wall GoFundMe began making headlines. The good people of the Internet noticed the speed at which a wasteful campaign inspired by hateful and false rhetoric was collecting millions of dollars…. and decided to donate their money to something more useful, something that helps American citizens in need right now.
Celebrities like Ben Stiller tweeting about the #SaveFlintChallenge helped a bit too, but it was really the top-notch hashtag #NoWaterNoWall created on December 21st that gave the Flint bottled water campaigns the traction they needed. Since #NoWaterNoWall began on Twitter, donations have skyrocketed. At the time of this writing, both GoFundMe’s were within their goals by less than $8,000. (Does this surge count as a kind of “hate-giving,” or is that not a thing like hate-reading?)
The recent success of the bottled water campaigns is already putting wheels in motion too. On Saturday, Pastor Rob Butler tweeted the West Court Church in Flint would be resuming water distribution in January “thanks to #SaveFlintChallenge.”
The state government stopped handing out water in Flint, Michigan in April. At a press conference earlier this month, Flint mayor Karen Weaver told residents that while the pipe replacement program was ahead of schedule, bottled drinking water was still the way to go. "We're not finished, so I don't want anybody to be confused about that," said Mayor Weaver. Michigan’s new incoming governor Gretchen Whitmer promises to restore free water delivery once she takes office.
According to Little Miss Flint organizers, for every dollar raised they can deliver 11 bottles of water to Flint’s most poor. They’ve delivered 700,000 bottles so far from this particular fundraiser. Meanwhile, it is unclear if the money raised for Trump’s border wall, a potential environmental hazard affecting safe drinking water, can actually be used as intended or delivered to the right department.
