MILWAUKEE — Afterthree more Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) closed Monday due to significant lead hazards, community organizers with the organization Metcalfe Park Community Bridges are stepping up to provide hundreds of families with filtration systems.
"The lead crisis has been an issue for decades," said Melody McCurtis, Deputy Director and Lead Organizer with Metcalfe Park Community Bridges. "Whether there's lead in our soil, our water, our paint, and now our schools."
It's why she and her team plan to go door-to-door later this month, offering water filtration systems to families who live in their neighborhood, prioritizing families with children ages six and under.
"So, we're going to do 480 of these (filtration systems) and they actually hook up under the sink to the water line," she said. "These systems are super, super expensive so we want to make sure our community has access to these systems."
The goal is to make sure families have access to safe drinking water.
"This lead crisis is not just a lead crisis, it intersects with a whole bunch of other things, right," she said.
The organization is also demanding that kids are able to attend class in lead-free schools.
"This is a multi-layer issue," McCurits said. "I expect MPS, the health department, the city, the state, Milwaukee County to figure out a way to get to the root causes of these issues."
Watch: Organizers distribute filters amid MPS lead issues
Officials have urged families concerned about whether their child was exposed to lead within an MPS school to get tested. The recommendation from officials is to schedule a screening with your family pediatrician. If that's not an option, they urge families to attend one of the many pop-up clinics happening in the community over the next few weeks.
A demonstration by a phlebotomist at Children's Wisconsin showed TMJ4 News that the screening is as easy as "1,2,3" — with a finger poke and a few drops of blood, the test is complete in under five minutes.
For more information about Lead Screening Clinics and the ongoing Health Department investigation into the lead crisis in MPS schools, click HERE.
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