DETROIT FREE PRESS
By Matthew Dolan
A Flint-based foundation’s plan to spend $100 million to help the city recover from its ongoing drinking water crisis is already off to a fast start, with plans to spend $50 million in related grants by the end of the year.
The latest program was announced Monday by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation to expand a community school model now in place at five elementary schools to all 11 public schools in the Flint Community Schools starting this fall. It’s designed to allow schools to connect students and families with health-related and other resources and services they may need in the wake of the citywide lead contamination of the water supply that started in 2014.
The Mott foundation said Monday it will award a $2.9-million grant to the Crim Fitness Foundation to support the school model expansion. Crim serves as the lead agency coordinating community school efforts.
A group of local and national foundations including Mott announced last month a plan to spend nearly $125 million to help Flint as state and federal officials continue to debate additional funding for the city’s years-long drinking water crisis.
Leading the pack with a pledge of up to $100 million for the city over the next five years was the Mott Foundation. The foundation, named for the businessman and former Flint mayor, announced last week it would send $5 million to support the Flint Child Health and Development Fund. Other grants made before the formal $125-million pledge included $4 million to help the City of Flint in the fall of last year reconnect to the Detroit water system in an effort to stop the lead contamination.
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