FLINT, MI -- When the community in La Porte, Ind., set out to gather donations of bottled water for Flint, they never expected to fill a semi-truck.
"We figured we would have 3 or 400 cases of water, put them on a drive-on trailer and pull them up here with my Tahoe. We quickly realized that we were really, really going to be outgunned," said Capt. Michael Kellems of the La Porte County Sheriff's Office.
The idea started with school liaison officers and lead to schools using athletic events and the department holding an inter-office competition to collect more than 60,000 bottles -- 2,300 cases -- of water, which were delivered by a police-escorted semi-truck, to Heavenly Host Baptist Church in Flint Monday morning.
One event that led to the donation of several cases of water was the town's rival basketball game - the biggest game of the year.
The cost of admission? A case of water.
Normally, revenue generated from the game funds athletic programs at the school for the year, Kellems said.
"That one game carries their entire year. They sacrificed a huge chunk of money to send these cases of water here to Flint," Kellems said.
In the La Porte County Sheriff's Department, teams on different shifts challenged each other to a two-week bottled water drive. By the end of it, 200 cases of bottled water were collected and ready to be donated.
The most incredible thing to him, Kellems said, is that the community otherwise has no connection to Flint.
"We have no connection to this area, but we all, we just know that the people up here needed some help, so the folks in La Porte County stepped up."