[Source: Susan Casper, ABC News 15] — Even before sunrise Friday morning, volunteers started loading pick-up trucks with cases of bottled water and boxes of red apples. Organizers and volunteers met outside the US Bank building in downtown Phoenix, which served as ground zero for the 2009 AZ Water Drive. The goal of the drive is reach more than one thousand people. “So I had a plan,” said organizer Dorsha Hale. “My plan was to drive up and down the streets of downtown Phoenix and give as many homeless people I could find a cool bottle of water.”
Hale told ABC15 she organized the first drive in July 2005 after a relentless and lethal blanket of heat settled on much of the Southwest, leaving 20 people dead in Phoenix alone. “The lack of preparation for the homeless was obvious by those sweltering on the sidewalks,” said Hale. The community responded and this year volunteers spent their lunch hour handing out nearly 700 free bottles of water in downtown Phoenix. [Note: Read the full article at Water, apples feed bodies and souls of Phoenix homeless.]
Downtown Voices Coalition 