Record-breaking hydration campaign saw over 1M water bottles donated

Since 2007, the city of Mesa has hosted a hydration donation campaign where residents and companies are urged to donate bottles of water during the hot summer months. Those water bottles are then distributed to those in need during the summer season, such as the unhoused population or those living in spaces without access to air-conditioning.

The 2024 iteration of the campaign was the most successful since its inception. With 1,014,160 bottles of water donated between May 6 and Sept. 27, the campaign smashed its goal of 700,000 and even broke the record of 836,154 bottles set in 2015.

Sally Harrison, president and CEO of the Mesa Chamber of Commerce, said a large chunk of donations came from various data centers in the area, which was part of a challenge issued by the chamber to incentivize more donations.

“In talking to one of our data centers in Salt River Project, we decided to put out a challenge to those big data center companies. We asked them if they would step up and give back the community. So that’s really what made the difference,” Harrison said.

Harrison said $37,000 was donated collectively by the data centers, which equated to around 336,364 bottles of water purchased. Harrison said record temperatures helped add to the urgency of the campaign this time around.

“We had a very long, drawn out, very hot summer. When I would send those notes out with information about the challenge, I would remind people that this heat happened last year. And people were in after that,” Harrison said.

Mesa Mayor John Giles said that heat definitely added to the urgency of the campaign. But he also said the heat and the campaign help raise awareness of a health crisis Mesa faces during record temperatures.

For people who are disconnected from safety nets or support resources during record heat, the consequences can be deadly if they aren’t hydrated.

“There’s a lot of people in our community that are disconnected from services, from friends and neighbors, church groups, and other safety nets during this record breaking heat. So the community really needs to have their eyes open and look for people that are at risk during the extreme heat we’re seeing,” Giles said.

The campaign was a collaborative effort between multiple parties, from those involved in collecting donations, those distributing water bottles to people in need, and the organizations making donations themselves. The Mesa Chamber of Commerce, United Food Bank, Resurrection Street Ministry and Paz de Cristo are some of those involved in the campaign.

Giles thanked all of the different companies, small businesses and organizations that helped in any way they could, whether it be donating, collecting or distributing.

“Mesa has been blessed with some amazing business and with a lot of resources to our community in the past several years. It was very encouraging to see the way that all these amazing businesses responded and became part of our community during this campaign,” Giles said.

United Food Bank Food Drive Coordinator Maddie Mittelstaedt wanted to spotlight the donations from individual citizens during the campaign and how important even one donated bottle of water could be for saving someone’s life.

“All of our neighbors who were able to donate on a smaller scale — that is just as important. If everybody in the neighborhood brings one case of water that can truly be life saving. The generosity of people to give in whatever capacity they could, we tried to tell people that no donation is too small or too big,” Mittelstaedt said.

Mittelstaedt said hopes that people take away from this year’s campaign that no act of generosity is too small or too large, and that any amount of help matters.

“I just hope people know that there is truly no act of generosity that goes unnoticed. Every single case of water or every single donation that we had come through our doors went straight out to our neighbors and was potentially life saving for somebody who was vulnerable to the extreme heat,” Mittelstaedt said.