At Stoney Wines, we believe in celebrating individuals who have made the world a better, safer & more innovative place. This week, we raise our glass to Mari Copeny, known to the world as "Little Miss Flint"—a youth environmental activist who picked up a pen at age 8, wrote a letter to the President of the United States, and set in motion a chain of events that would bring the Flint water crisis to the center of the national conversation.

In 2016, eight-year-old Mari sat down and wrote a letter to President Barack Obama. She told him about her city. About the brown water coming out of the taps. About the children getting sick. About the community being ignored. She asked him to come see it for himself.

He did. And he didn't come empty-handed.

President Obama's visit to Flint, Michigan, put a national spotlight on a crisis that had been festering for years—and his administration subsequently approved a $100 million relief package for the people of Flint. But the spotlight itself was equally powerful. It brought the Flint water crisis to the center of the national conversation—a crisis rooted not just in infrastructure failure, but in environmental racism. The residents of Flint are predominantly Black and low-income. They had been drinking lead-contaminated water since 2014. They had been raising alarms for years. And for years, they had been dismissed, minimized, and ignored by the very officials sworn to protect them.

It took an 8-year-old girl to make the country pay attention.

The Flint water crisis is a stark example of environmental justice failure in America. When cost-cutting decisions led city officials to switch Flint's water source to the Flint River without proper treatment, lead leached into the pipes and into the bodies of thousands of residents. Black communities bore the brunt of the damage—elevated lead levels in children, health complications, and a profound loss of trust in the systems that were supposed to keep them safe.

Mari understood all of this. And she refused to stay silent.

In the years since her letter to President Obama, Mari has become one of the most recognized voices in youth environmental activism in America. She's spoken at rallies, marched in protests, testified before officials, and used every platform available to her to demand clean water as a basic human right—not a privilege reserved for wealthy, predominantly white communities.

But Mari's advocacy has never been limited to water alone. She's raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for her community through her foundation, providing backpacks filled with school supplies, period products, toys, and other essentials to Flint children who needed them. She understands that environmental justice and economic justice are inseparable—that communities poisoned by their water supply face cascading consequences that touch every part of daily life.

She's also a powerful voice in the broader youth climate and water justice movement, connecting the dots between the Flint crisis and the global fight for environmental equity. She shows up for other communities facing similar battles, building coalitions and reminding the world that what happened in Flint wasn't an accident—it was the predictable result of a system that consistently values some lives more than others.

Now 18, Mari is still fighting. She's still showing up. Still speaking truth to power with the same clarity and conviction she had at age 8. She's grown from a little girl writing letters at the kitchen table to a nationally recognized activist shaping conversations about community activism, environmental policy, and the rights of marginalized communities to safe, clean water.

She proves that young activists changing the world don't need permission, credentials, or a seat at the table to make an impact. Sometimes all it takes is one letter. One voice. One child who refuses to accept that her community deserves less.

Mari Copeny looked at a broken system and decided, at age 8, that it was her job to fix it. And she's been doing exactly that ever since.

So as we pour a glass of Stoney Wines this month, we honor Mari Copeny for her courage, her compassion, and her unwavering commitment to fighting for the communities that power refuses to protect.

🥂 Here's to Mari—an activist, a champion, and a young woman proving that one voice can move mountains. Cheers to her ongoing fight and the clean water every community deserves.

Know a young person using their voice to fight for their community? Drop their name in the comments—we'd love to raise our glass to them too.