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Once upon a time, there was a little girl who loved eating pizza with her friends.

Practicing her round-off backhand spring for cheerleading, and joking around.

Her name was a Mariana Coppany, but everyone caught her Mari.

Mari was born July 6, 2007. She and her family lived in Flint, Michigan.

Mari loved living in Flint. It was always so much to do, like exploring the planetarium,

or shopping at them all. Mari could ride her bike through Riverbank Park,

or have a picnic next to Stepping Stone Falls.

In fact, Mari was so proud of living in Flint that she appeared in hometown

pagents and people caught her little misplaced. This is a story about Mari and her connection to Flint.

It's also a story about something we all need in order to survive. Water.

When Mari was little, she didn't think much about water, but one day in 2015,

Mari noticed that the water running from the faucet in her kitchen looked weird.

It was brown and rusty, and it smelled terrible. When she tried drinking it, it tasted even worse.

Soon, Mari's family started getting rashes on their skin. Their neighbors began reporting headaches,

hair loss, and a burning sensation in their eyes. Even though the local authorities knew about

the crisis, at first, nobody stepped in to help. Like Mari and her family, the majority of Flint

residents were black, and many Flinttonians were living below the property line. With this kind of

catastrophe be addressed faster if it happened in a wealthy or white neighborhood?

It took a whole year before scientists began testing the water.

...