St. John Vianney principal calls efforts to fund water filtration systems ‘overwhelming’
Principals from Detroit-area Catholic schools present checks March 8 to principals from St. Pius X School and St. John Vianney School in Flint the wake of the fallout from the city's water crisis.Courtesy of Melissa Lambrecht
Flint — For millions of students, a visit to the drinking fountain is a given. Not so any longer in Flint.
Amid the ongoing water crisis, students at many Flint schools are suffering the same consequences as the rest of the lead-plagued city, with unsafe water and concerns over health.
So when students at Sacred Heart School in Dearborn heard about the plight of their fellow Catholic students at St. John Vianney and St. Pius X schools in Flint, they sprang into action.
“They talked about corporal works of mercy and really wanting to make a difference,” said Sacred Heart principal Melissa Lambrecht. “It was from this talk that sparked the idea of helping our brothers and sisters within the Catholic schools of Flint if there was a need.”
And there certainly was a need.
“In order for there to be safe drinking water, water must contain less than 5 parts per million of lead,” Lambrecht said. “St. Pius X was tested at 2 parts per million and St. John Vianney was tested at 45 parts per million, which is well above the safe limit.”
St. John Vianney, it turned out, needed an entire new water filtration system that would cost nearly $5,000, plus $30 a month for maintenance. St. Pius X didn’t need as elaborate a system, but that school, too, needed upgrades to maintain the safety of its drinking water.
So Sacred Heart student council president and vice president Jad Fawaz and Kelly Samulski rallied their classmates and enlisted the help of students at 16 other Archdiocese of Detroit schools to raise the funds.
Together with students and faculty from St. Mary in Wayne; St. Joseph in Erie; St. Charles Borromeo in Newport; St. Joseph in Trenton; St. Patrick in Carleton; St. Raphael in Garden City; St. Stephen in New Boston; Divine Child High School and Elementary in Dearborn; St. Edith and St. Michael the Archangel in Livonia; St. Anselm, St. Sebastian and St. Linus in Dearborn Heights; the students raised $8,692.10 for St. John Vianney and $1,815.43 for St. Pius X.
In addition, students at St. Catherine of Siena Academy in Wixom raised $524.84 for the schools, and Novi Detroit Catholic Central High School raised approximately $3,500 to be donated to Catholic Relief Services’ efforts to aid Flint residents. Other Detroit-area parishes and schools have also stepped up.
On March 8, several principals traveled to the Flint schools to personally deliver the checks.
“I just cried,” St. John Vianney principal Lara Daniel said. “It’s great that people bring water and it’s great that people are rising up about this, but when you see what actual people actually do to help your school, it’s just overwhelming.”
The next steps will include keeping up with food nutrition to help reduce children’s lead levels and hiring a behavioral specialist to help deal with the fallout of lead poisoning in younger children, Daniel said. Parishes, schools and community groups from across the United States continue to offer their help, donating bottled water, money and prayers, she said.
“It’s such a blessing that Catholic schools really from all over the United States have stepped up and said ‘We want to help you. How can we help your school?’” Daniel said.
