Mission at the Eastward would like to thank the Poland Spring Bottling Company in Kingfield, Maine for their generous donation of water to our organization.
Mission at the Eastward has been working in the community through its Housing Ministry since 1975. Volunteers from churches in the Northeast of the US come to Maine to help us repair homes in the community, especially for those with some experiencing some economic difficulty.
This donation of water will keep our volunteers healthy and hydrated, especially this week with the temperatures rising, and many of them working outside. We are very thankful that Poland Spring is willing to support us in our mission to serve the community by making homes warmer, safer and healthier, and thereby building stronger communities.
Sincerely,
Thea Kornelius, Executive Director
Mission at the Eastward
Farmington
No one has potable water? I would think that if you wanted to stay hydrated, you would grab a jar and fill it from your own well while you still can. Mission to save OUR WATER!
Yes, thank you for keeping these folks hydrated. And, a special thanks to”Mission of The Eastward” for all you do for those people in need!
Dotty, Some perspective for you, The average total rainfall and snowmelt is equal to 12 trillion gallons a year, taking out for normal runoff, 5 trillion gallons of water enter our aquifer annually, Poland Springs could take a million gallons of water for the next billion years and not come close to even lowering the aquifer an inch. In short, there is plenty of water to go around. I have had the opportunity to work with similar groups around the state over the years, they do a lot of good to the community on THEIR own dime, if Poland Springs wants to donate water to them so these people can continue to do their work as safe as possible, to help people who don’t have the means of helping themselves, good on Poland Springs. So lay off them.
Thank you Poland Springs for sucking our state dry.Another foreign company trying to look good.
Thanks for supporting.
Both in this gift and also for providing much needed employment and benefits to many families
We’re glad you’re here Poland Spring!!
Why does the DB print everything that old H B has to say?Is he the smartest person you know of just part of your liberal agenda.Just for your info the loudest is not necessarily the brightest.It seems you print all he has to say, if so you should you should print the stuff others say.Right or wrong they are still opinions and the old saying is everybody has one.
Poland Springs AKA Nestle donates water to non-profits to make it look they are good neighbors and community stewards- more public relations BS. Meanwhile they suck our ground water dry and pollute the world with their plastic.
Taxed Enough, The Bulldog doesn’t even post half the stuff I send them. And Poland Springs donated to work groups long before Nestle took over. Move to Kingfield and Poland Springs will give you free water too, it’s in the contract they have with the town. But I just don’t like people getting upset over falsehoods, like PS will take all the water, when they won’t even make a dent in the water table. It’s not about who’s right or who’s wrong. And about the Bulldog’s liberality when it comes to what they post and by whom, it is very good. And I rarely write from the cuff, sometimes I spend a couple hours a night looking stuff up and making calls to get as much straight and as accurate as possible. Why, because I think this is foolish, please see Dotty’s post. She voiced her opinion, she was wrong about things, she said “Grab a jar and fill it from your own well.” This particular group is Presbyterian based in Leeds or they were last I knew, so if they are working in Farmington, they very well can’t fill up a jar from their own well and bring it to work with them, And if they are like almost every church group I ever worked with we just camped out at whatever church was hosting us, rented a crapper and washed the grime off in the local swimming hole at the end of the day.
Taxed enough, please see DB policy on comments (About Us). Comments that follow the rules are posted, comments that don’t are not. I don’t always agree with HB but (s)he follows the rules. See also, gadfly.
Hrtlss,
You work with churches? Who’d have thought it? I’m happy for you.
You know, its hard to see nature used up by big corporations.
Sorta like having the local swimming hole being sucked dry for profit.
I don’t support Nestle’s stance on their rights to the ground water. I don’t agree with their ever-increasing bids to suck more and more water up and sell it. I worry about a natural resource, that should be available to all of us, being bottled, shipped away and sold. HOWEVER- I support Poland Spring because they employ my friends and neighbors, and they seem to do so in a responsible and equitable manner. They provide good jobs at good wages, with good benefits. They are generous to local charities. They pay taxes, their products are reasonably priced and they have been a good neighbor to me.
Attn commenters: Thea is thanking Poland Springs for donating water to people who donate their time in volunteering. I find it unbelievable that people actually have negative comments…Ugh
Just Saying, some people travel with that black cloud over them all the time. They need to go to their doctor and get a prescription for Prozac, the happy pill and let a little sunshine into their lives.
Working, It is a renewable resource, it is available to everybody, just walk into any store and there are cases of the stuff. Anybody in Maine with a deep bore drilled well is drinking the same water that Poland Springs is bottling, do you think those people should give out their water to everybody as well? Poland Springs doesn’t actually sell water, they sell a plastic bottle conveniently filled with water for people to enjoy.
Poland Spring’s water is not available to everyone. You have to buy it. It is sold for profit. Plastic bottle included.
Terry, Just because you have to pay for something, that doesn’t mean it’s not available to everyone. And it costs Nestlé about $1.50 per pound for raw bottle material, the weight of an empty water bottle is 13 grams, in a large case of water there is about 1lb of plastic, it costs about $5 with tax and bottle deposit for a case, put trucking fees and other costs into a case of water and you end up paying for a case of plastic bottles filled with free water rather than a case of water filled, free plastic bottles.
Hrtlss- I do walk into the store, see the cases and cases of bottled water and wonder what town or what aquifer is supporting it. It IS a renewable resource, but even those are compromised by endless consumption, as many other regions have discovered. I am glad that the company returns jobs, incomes and charity to our area, but they are drawing water that is available to anybody, as you pointed out, and selling it to make money… a portion of which is reinvested in their communities.
I understand that Poland Spring does a lot of good things for the community and through their charitable water donations, BUT, I see first hand what is happening to our water quality. In 20 years as a plumber in this area, the amount of customers I see who’s water has suddenly changed and requires expensive filtration is alarming. We have always had incredible water in our area, but it’s rapidly changing. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
come on guys, stop picking on the poor, helpless multinational corporation worth over $250 billion and with a history of unethical and illegal business practices including literal slave labor and baby killing. i mean, sure, they pay no state taxes, but hey, they provide up to 1000 jobs and occasionally free, clean, perfectly recyclable bottled water, just the thing for a hot day, and something that is recognized as a universal human right. geez, some people can only see the bad in everything!
Well said, HB. Also, not everyone has good drinking water.
Myopic, Have you been in the brown study? So they get a tax break, hey guess what, Walmart, Hannaford’s Shaw’s and LL.Bean get the same tax break, pretty cool. And just to broaden your mind a little, Poland Spring does pay taxes, they use more diesel in a week then 100 homes do in a year, the state makes 30cents per gallon off diesel fuel, what is upsetting is that the state only gets 3cents from jet fuel(kerosene) that’s the same as heating oil, but anyway, there are currently 25 bottled water companies that aren’t Nestle affiliated buying Maine water, WOW, that’s a staggering amount of water, most of it gets trucked to points unknown to be filled for Kroger’s or some other store chain with a store brand water product, something to do with a non-compete with Nestle thing, but selling Massachusetts water in Maine is ok, yeah I can’t figure it out either. Nestle donated millions of bottles of water in the past 2 years to American disaster relief, that includes 6.4 million bottles to Flint, Michigan. Take a family who just lost everything in a fire to LL.Bean and ask for a clothing donation and see what happens, I’ll save you the trouble, nothing will happen. I don’t recall anything bad happening to Bristol-Myers/Mead Johnson, the maker of Enfamil as they shoved their breast milk substitutes and baby formula down the throats of 3rd world babies. Hershey, Mars and Cadbury were caught up in the whole buy chocolate from the Ivory Coast plantations thing as well. And there is no law that says water has to be free, just clean.
hrtlss: cool. people on welfare pay sales tax, so i guess i won’t hear you complain about that anymore.
also, to be clear, is your response to a company utilizing slave labor and literally deadly business practices actually, “other people are doing it?” touché. i guess you rule the playground. i’ll get back to work.
This is not snowmelt or rainfall.it is ancient aquifer, from glacier melt. It can not be replaced with the same type of water.