Uvalde CISD and Zurn Elkay Announce Donation for Cleaner, Healthier, Safer Drinking Water
- This summer, UCISD will install the donated units from Zurn Elkay in five UCISD schools, providing cleaner, healthier, safer filtered drinking water to the district's 4,000 students, faculty, staff and community members.
- Donated Elkay® filters are tested and certified to NSF/ANSI 42, 53 and 401 to reduce lead, microplastics and other harmful contaminants, with many models engineered to reduce emerging contaminants like certain PFAS (forever chemicals).
- Valued at $370,000, the donation is part of Zurn Elkay's Fountains for Youth initiative, which addresses the issue of lead in drinking water head-on by providing filtered bottle filling stations and filters to school districts in areas where lead levels are high and resources are low.
Zurn Elkay Water Solutions Corporation (NYSE:ZWS) and Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District (UCISD) today announced the donation of 36 Elkay Pro FiltrationTM filtered bottle filling stations, 19 Elkay® ezH2O® filtered bottle filling stations, 73 Elkay filtration conversion kits and five years of Elkay filters for each of the donated units, ensuring consistent delivery of cleaner, healthier, safer drinking water to students, faculty, staff and community members.
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Second-grader Alexis Enriquez drinks Elkay-filtered water on the playground at Dalton Elementary School in Uvalde, TX.
In an event at UCISD's Dalton Elementary School, 600 N. Fourth Street, UCISD Interim Superintendent Dr. Juan Hinojosa and Zurn Elkay VP - Public Affairs and Sustainability Angela Hersil celebrated the donation with a class of second-grade students and community leaders, including Texas State Representative Don McLaughlin (R-District 80) and Mayor Hector R. Luevano.
This summer, the donated units will be installed across five UCISD schools, replacing unfiltered drinking fountains with one filtered bottle filling station per 100 students. Additionally, all faucets in UCISD's classrooms and cafeterias will be retrofitted to Elkay filtration, using donated conversion kits and filter cartridges.
"Access to cleaner, safer drinking water is not a luxury—it is a necessity," Dr. Hinojosa said. "And today, because of Zurn Elkay's Fountains for Youth initiative, that necessity becomes a guaranteed reality. Zurn Elkay's Fountains for Youth initiative recognizes something that we in Uvalde know all too well: that the communities with the greatest need are often the ones with the fewest resources to address it. That they chose to invest here—in our schools, in our children—speaks volumes about their values as a company and as a corporate neighbor."
"Our Fountains for Youth Program remains a cornerstone of our corporate giving, in which we donate our Elkay filtered bottle filling stations to schools across the country," said Todd A. Adams, Chairman and CEO of Zurn Elkay Water Solutions. "For kids in Uvalde, across Texas and nationwide, school buildings are more than just places committed to the healthy physical, social and emotional development of children—they're also a vital source of drinking water. Lead is harmful to all humans, but even more so for developing children, leading to development and learning delays. We're proud to partner with UCISD in helping them to deliver cleaner, safer drinking water to the children of Uvalde throughout these formative years."
Elkay filtered bottle filling stations and drinking fountains are an immediate and cost-effective solution to expensive and laborious infrastructure upgrades. Elkay filters are tested and certified to NSF/ANSI 42, 53 and 401 to reduce lead, microplastics and other harmful contaminants, with many models engineered to reduce emerging contaminants like certain PFAS (forever chemicals). Elkay bottle filling stations deliver a dramatic environmental impact as well: in 2025 alone, the use of Elkay bottle filling stations has eliminated the need for more than 20 billion single-use plastic bottles.
The donation, valued at $370,000, is part of Zurn Elkay's Fountains for Youth initiative, which addresses the issue of lead in drinking water head-on, by providing filtered bottle filling stations and filters to school districts in areas where lead levels are high and resources are low.
"This is going to be a huge change for our community and our students," said Rep. Don McLaughlin. "As the state representative of this area and a citizen of Uvalde, thank you to Zurn Elkay for what you've done here, and thank you to Uvalde CISD leadership and faculty for having the foresight to go forward with this partnership."
"This generous donation from Zurn Elkay to UCISD ensures easy access to staying hydrated, keeping the children's health at the forefront," said Mayor Luevano. "Water is something that we all need, and if we can improve it, all the better for our children as they grow up."
"Our business places us at the center of critical community issues related to water cleanliness, safety, conservation and infrastructure, and we embrace the responsibility to make an even deeper impact where it's so desperately needed," said Hersil. "Our products provide point-of-use filtration that immediately makes drinking water cleaner and safer, and by making donations like this, we can support communities like Uvalde in fulfilling one of their most fundamental and important goals: providing safer, cleaner drinking water to their children."
For photos and video from today's announcement, please visit
zurnelkay.com/press-room/press-kits.
About Uvalde Consolidated School District
Uvalde CISD serves approximately 4,000 students across seven campuses. The district comprises three secondary schools: Uvalde High School, Crossroads Academy and Morales Junior High. There are five elementary campuses: Batesville AgriTech Leadership Academy, Dalton Elementary, Legacy Elementary and the Uvalde CISD Dual Language Academy. Batesville AgriTech Leadership Academy is situated in Zavala County. At the same time, the other campuses are located in Uvalde County, positioned at the intersection of the two longest highways in the United States—often referred to as "The Crossroads of America." Uvalde lies along US Highway 90 and US Highway 83, approximately 80 miles west of San Antonio and 70 miles east of Del Rio along US Highway 90. The district spans 1,093 square miles across Uvalde, Real and Zavala counties, with the local economy primarily driven by agriculture and mineral production.
About Zurn Elkay Water Solutions
Named one of America's Most Responsible Companies and one of America's Greenest Companies by Newsweek and one of the World's Best Companies for Sustainable Growth by TIME, Zurn Elkay Water Solutions is headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and is a growth-oriented, pure-play water management business that designs, procures, manufactures and markets what we believe to be the broadest sustainable product portfolio of specification-driven water management solutions to improve health, hydration, human safety and the environment. The Zurn Elkay product portfolio includes professional grade water safety and control products, flow systems products, hygienic and environmental products and filtered drinking water products for public and private spaces. Learn more at zurnelkay.com.
Cautionary Statement on Forward-Looking Statements
Information in this release may involve outlook, expectations, beliefs, plans, intentions, strategies or other statements regarding the future, which are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties. All forward-looking statements included in this release are based on information available to Zurn Elkay Water Solutions as of the date of this release, and Zurn Elkay Water Solutions assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. The statements in this release are not guarantees of future performance, and actual results could differ materially from current expectations. Numerous factors could cause or contribute to such differences. Please refer to "Risk Factors" and "Cautionary Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements" in our report on Form 10-K for the period ended December 31, 2025, as well as the Company's subsequent annual, quarterly and current reports filed on Forms 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a further discussion of the factors and risks associated with the business.
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Anne Marie Espinoza, Uvalde CISD
amespinoza1075@uvaldecisd.net | 830-278-6655 x1075
Kevin Shermach, Zurn Elkay Water Solutions
corporate.communications@zurnelkay.com | 414-373-1919