'Let's Help People': Brewery Offers Clean Water Amid Boil Order

PLAINFIELD, IL — For many Plainfield residents, this weekend marked a first. Officials issued a boil order beginning Friday after tests indicated E. coli bacteria in a water sample, prompting people to run to the store and stock up on bottled water. With 600 gallons of clean, barreled water to spare at their brewery, Werk Force Brewing owners Brandon and Amanda Wright decided to help out their fellow Plainfield residents.

"Some people couldn't get enough water [for their] families, so we kind of put our heads together," he told Patch.

As they sat on the porch taking in Friday's boil order announcement, Amanda said she and Brandon brainstormed ideas for what to do. Realizing how much clean, stored water they had at the brewery, they wanted to share it with the public.

A large part of brewing beer involves water. "We use a lot of water. Beer is 95 percent water," Brandon said. That means Werk Force has several large holding tanks of water on-site. Taking extra precautions because of the boil order, they reboiled the stored water, cooled it and offered it to the public.

"It was a little bit of extra work on our hands to do the process and reboil the water ... but we were confident in our water," he said. "It's incredible water that we get, plus we have our treatment facilities on-site that we were able to utilize, so we had clean, safe, potable water for anyone that wanted it."

Saturday morning, the team at Werk Force posted on Facebook. All residents had to do was bring their own clean container to be served on a first-come, first-served basis. Soon, appreciative comments came flooding in.

"It humbles me to be a part of such an amazing company," one person wrote. "Thank you for looking out for your staff and customers, but for the community as well."

"Cheers to you all!" someone else wrote. "Thanks for being so awesome to the community!"

"Took advantage of this awesome opportunity in this awesome place today, thanks so much for the water Werk Force!" another person wrote. "Your staff was so helpful and friendly!"

Some residents arrived at Werk Force, which is at 14903 S. Center St., and brought with them 5-gallon jugs. Others ran to Home Depot to buy coolers to get water. Brandon said people who came were "super grateful" for the clean water.

"We didn't have as huge of a turnout as we thought we would, but still, we had enough residents take part in it that it was definitely worth it," Brandon said. "This is just kind of right in our wheelhouse. We've got the equipment; we have the water; we know what we're doing — let's help people out."

When they planned the event, Brandon said they didn't know how long the boil order would last, so they originally planned to give out water for a few hours Saturday and later extended it for a few hours on Sunday as well.

"As a resident and as [someone] owning a business in this community, I think [village staff has] done a great job keeping people informed, and they jumped on it right away," Brandon said, adding that they wanted to give out free water as a way to show good faith that there's still a lot of community strength. "We can all band together to get through it."

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