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Keepin' It Local: Proud Source Water

Proud Source Water is spring fed water that comes from Mackay, Idaho.

BOISE - Today's Keepin’ It Local story takes us to an office building in the heart of Boise, headquarters for a business trying to both pay back and pay forward thanks to a natural Idaho resource of rare quality.

Mackay is a town nestled in a valley with 12,000-foot-plus peaks all the way around it.

A picturesque ranching community due east of Sun Valley, where Ryan Donahue grew up. It wasn't until he left Mackay that he realized one of the best things about his hometown.

"And once I got older, went off to college and started experiencing things. About that time, bottled water came out and it didn't taste anything like Mackay's water, so every time I would go home to visit I'd loved the taste of the water, and realized right then that there was something special," said Donahue.

That something special has a scientific explanation, but bottom line, it's spring fed water, and the product Donahue and the company he founded, Proud Source, now sells in 24 states.

"So it's pure?" asked KTVB.

"It's pure. We do not touch the water. We don't purify the water. We don't add to the water," explained Donahue.

But Proud Source is adding something to Mackay - jobs, a 30,000 square-foot plant, and plans for growth.

“It's important to me because I want to give something back to the community. I want to provide jobs in a town and a city, we didn't ever have anything," said Donahue.

And the giving back doesn't stop there. Proud Source President CJ Pennington says being kind to the environment is also a top priority.

"Aluminum is the most sustainable package you can package and sell a product in. It's infinitely recyclable," said Pennington. "If we can shake the industry enough to where people are starting to make a change and we're not the only ones bottling or trying to bottle water in a more sustainable way, I think that would ultimately be our goal."

"We have water that is unmatched, really, in the world. I want people to know we have something special in Idaho,” said Donahue.

Locally you can find Proud Source Water in Albertsons, the Boise Co-op and Jacksons. Three-thousand stores now carry this water from Mackay.

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