Kat Stafford

Detroit Free Press

Flint Mayor Karen Weaver and former first daughter Chelsea Clinton announced a new program Sunday -- the Flint WaterWorks initiative -- which will provide the city's youth with jobs to directly help families affected by the water crisis.

Through the program, young adults will be given jobs distributing clean water, healthy food and nutrition information and services to families. They also will help make "Flint’s water infrastructure safe," Weaver said, by aiding her Fast Start initiative to remove all lead and lead-tainted service lines in the city.

According to Weaver, the Flint WaterWorks initiative was developed in partnership with Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, whose team helped the mayor establish the public-private partnership program.

The initiative is being started with a $500,000 contribution from J.B. and M.K. Pritzker to the Community Foundation of Greater Flint.

"For my mother and for me, this is not political," Chelsea Clinton said at a news conference. "It is deeply personal and I think it should be personal to every American. ... (We want) to see the children of Flint as our children and to see the youth in Flint, as the mayor says, as being a promising youth for Flint and really our country."

The city's water supply became contaminated after its source was changed from Lake Huron to the Flint River in April 2014 while the city was under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager. Last year, the city switched back to the Lake Huron system after the corrosive river water leached lead and caused elevated levels of the toxin in drinking water.

The first pipe was replaced under the Fast Start program on Friday and 30 more are scheduled to be replaced in the next 30 days, with many more to be replaced in the months ahead.

About 100 young adults, ages 16-24, in the community who are out of school and not working are the target of the program, Weaver said.

"We're excited," Weaver said. "It was interesting because when this whole thing happened, we had the National Guard here and we were thankful they were here because we knew they were coming to give our residents clean water, but on the other hand it was kind of sad because we knew we had young people that could be part of making this change happen. I kept saying we need to be paying young people do this. I was talking with Secretary Clinton and it didn't fall on deaf ears. She heard our cries. She said she was going to do something to make this happen. It was her inspiration."

The city has about 10,138 youth between the ages of 16 and 24 who either are not in school or are not working, Weaver said. Flint WaterWorks will begin as a pilot program sometime this month and run through Nov. 30.

Sunday was the second time Chelsea Clinton has visited Flint. Last month, she toured Hurley Children's Center in Flint and spoke with Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, the pediatrician and assistant professor at Michigan State University who brought the high levels of lead in children's blood to the government's attention.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders also has paid attention to Flint. He has called on Gov. Rick Snyder to resign and has opened a campaign office in Flint.

Contact Katrease Stafford: kstafford@freepress.com