http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/...s-make-lasting-impact-hometown-flint-michigan
NOT FAR FROM the Flint YMCA, the roar of supercharged engines of classic, custom and collector American cars can be heard as they cruise down Saginaw Street.
Residents line up along the street in lawn chairs to catch a glimpse of the classic cars that are trickling in for the upcoming "Back to the Bricks" rolling cruise, a tradition that annually draws more than 500,000 car show enthusiasts.
It's a reminder of Flint's glory days, when the local automobile industry was thriving and GM and Buick had busy plants in the city. It's also a brief distraction for locals to take their minds off of wondering whether their tap water is truly safe to drink.
At its peak in the 1960s, Flint was home to nearly 200,000 residents. GM once employed 85,000 people in Flint. But in 2017, Flint's population stood at barely more than 96,000, with the median household income averaging $25,650 and 41.9 percent of the city living in poverty, according to the U.S. Census Bureau report.
In the past four decades, Flint has endured the departure of much of its lifeline -- the automobile industry -- from its city, the ensuing economic hardship, a crime rate that had Flint ranked in last year's top-10 most violent cities, according to FBI data, and a contaminated water crisis that became a state of emergency and could impact generations for years to come.
"Well, I'll tell you, it's hell," said John Wade, who has lived in Flint for 61 years and worked for GM. "It's hell for us. ... Everything."
"It is definitely disheartening that we continue to let a city in America do this."
The city's economy and population steadily shrank after GM downsized in the 1980s. The state of Michigan took over the city's declining finances in 2011, and the city announced it would be switching to the Flint River as its water source.
Not long after the switch in 2014, lifelong residents such as Dorothy Rogers began noticing the color of the water noticeably changing. When she filled her bathtub with water, an inch and a half of dirt formed at the bottom of the tub. It wasn't long before she developed "blotches all over."
The Environmental Protection Agency and Virginia Tech University did tests in 2015 that indicated dangerous levels of lead discovered in residents' homes.
Rogers said she began using three to four bottles of water to rinse the contaminated water off her after showers and used bottled water for cooking and drinking. She eventually joined a gym where there was clean water just to utilize the showers. But her husband's health worsened and her miniature pinscher's hair began falling out.
"My husband already had chronic health issues, and it just got worse," Rogers said. "We can't prove that [the contaminated water] is what it was because he did pass away. He passed with pneumonia that caused the heart to stop. He was 53."
Moses Bingham, the director of the Safe Places program that Kuzma visited at the Flint YMCA, was taking his 8-year-old daughter, Genesis, to school recently when she began panicking because she forgot to pack her water bottle.
"She almost had a nervous breakdown," said Bingham, who grew up in Flint. "I want my kids to be kids. I don't want them to be worried about what they have to drink at school like they are going to run out of water, like we don't have it. Kids from Flint are no different from any other kids in the world. They deserve the right to have clean water, the right to get a good education, just the basics of what we think of America and the American dream."
"[But] we are known for being resilient," Bingham added of Flint. "Some of the things that we have faced, America is facing now. We went through the automotive crisis, we faced that 10, 20 years before everyone else and we took that blow and we showed America we can make it. So we take this water blow and we can make it."
Kuzma plans to continue spreading awareness about his hometown's plight, much like Miss Michigan Emily Sioma did at this year's Miss America 2019 pageant. In a moment that went viral earlier this week, Sioma introduced herself on the Miss America stage by saying, "From the state with 84 percent of the U.S. fresh water but none for its residents to drink."
With 1.9 million followers on Instagram and another 460,000 on Twitter reading his tweets, Kuzma's reach will continue to expand as his game and the Lakers grow alongside James.
"Sometimes the mayor or we [The Flintstones] are saying something, it really does not resonate with people," Bell said. "But when you got somebody like Kyle who plays for one of the most famous franchises ever and with one of the best athletes of all time, people are going to listen. He has more reach than just about anybody I know [from Flint] right now."
"I want my kids to be kids. I don't want them to be worried about what they have to drink at school like they are going to run out of water, like we don't have it."Flint native Moses Bingham
As Kuzma conducts a Q&A with the kids at the YMCA, one asks something that everyone in the room wants to know.
"Have you talked to LeBron yet?" a kid asked.
Kuzma said he has, to the delight of the kids. Perhaps one day, Kuzma will talk to James about a deeper subject, like how to help Flint the way James has with Akron.
"LeBron is a role model in that sense," Kuzma said. "Because for him to be as good as he is and how high up he is on the totem pole, to still care about Akron, Ohio, that is tremendous and speaks volumes."
"He is from a small city and I am from a small city. So I want to [have] that type of impact on my community."
