Anheuser-Busch is taking one down and passing it around, except instead of bottles of beer, the company is delivering more than 155,000 cans of emergency drinking water to help communities affected by Hurricane Harvey.
The first of three truckloads of water was sent from Anheuser-Busch’s Cartersville brewery in Georgia and delivered to the American Red Cross in Baton Rouge on Monday.
Two additional truckloads are being sent to an American Red Cross facility in Arlington, Texas, scheduled to arrive sometime during the week.
MillerCoors also provided Texas with 50,000 cans of water to be distributed by the Red Cross in affected areas.
“We’ve also set up a microsite in partnership with Red Cross where employees can make a donation to support victims of the storms,” MillerCoors spokesman Marty Maloney said, The Hill reported. “MillerCoors will match all donations made through the microsite for a minimum of $25,000.”
Anheuser-Busch has a long-standing partnership with the Red Cross, according to the brewing company.
“Since 1988 we have donated an excess of 76 million cans of clean drinking water,” the brewery company’s vice president for community affairs, Bill Bradley, told NBC. “The Cartersville location is our designated brewery for the emergency water program — it’s something we’re very proud of.”
The Cartersville brewery halts production periodically throughout the year to prepare canned drinking water so as to be ready to help American communities in times of need. This clean, safe emergency drinking water was already canned and ready to be shipped when the Red Cross issued an urgent request to support communities hit by Hurricane Harvey.
“Putting our production and logistics strengths to work by providing safe, clean drinking water is the best way we can help in these situations,” Bradley said in a statement.
Anheuser-Busch has three facilities in Houston: one large brewery, its craft partner Karbach, and the Longhorn glass bottle facility. The three facilities together have approximately 1,100 employees.
“The safety of our colleagues is paramount and we are proud of the work our Houston team has done over the weekend to keep our team safe in these difficult and exceptional circumstances,” Bradley added.
In 2016, Anheuser-Busch produced and shipped emergency drinking water to communities hit by natural disasters, including the California wildfires, the Louisiana floods and Hurricane Matthew.
Cheers to that!
