Midwest and Southern US Tornado Relief Fund 2021

Last month marked the one-year anniversary of a devastating series of tornadoes. They left a trail of destruction across more than five states, including Kentucky. Thanks to your generous support of GlobalGiving’s Midwest and Southern US Tornado Relief Fund, communities are recovering.

In November, my colleague Chase and I saw the impact of your generosity firsthand. We met with several of our nonprofit partners in western Kentucky who are spearheading important, community-led work to fill the gaps and meet survivors’ needs. 

Despite sharing moments of joy and laughter together, nonprofit leaders in Kentucky showed us that the road to full recovery is long, and ongoing support is essential. With that in mind, GlobalGiving made another series of trust-based grants last month to a number of our partners in Kentucky on the front lines of tornado recovery.

Here is a short description of some of the critical work you’ve supported through your generosity and a reflection on our time in Kentucky:

We met Dustin, a leader of the Paducah LGBT Welcome Center (Heartland Equality). Heartland Equality has been working tirelessly with local communities, churches, universities, and companies to deliver the goods and cash people need to recover after the tornadoes. Dustin has driven hundreds of miles delivering food, clothes, and cash cards to survivors across many storm-affected communities. His team has provided vital care for LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC community members in the area. The latest GlobalGiving grant will allow Heartland Equality to provide more supplies for survivors and purchase a van to deliver them. Heartland Equality will store these supplies in a warehouse the team purchased with a previous grant from GlobalGiving.

We also visited Feeding America, Kentucky’s Heartland. The organization serves 42 counties, 17 of which were severely impacted by the December 2021 tornadoes. This meant Stephanie’s team had to jump into action to respond to each local food pantry’s needs across the region. As Chase and I saw, Feeding America, Kentucky’s Heartland continues to support its local partners by supplying them with much-needed food items, purchasing refrigerators and vans to build their capacity, and connecting them with other donors to bolster their total resources. You can watch a short docu-series about the organization’s response to the tornadoes here.

A great example of this work is the Needline Food Pantry in Mayfield, Kentucky. Mayfield was almost completely leveled by one of the tornadoes. Chase and I spoke with Jackie, the pantry's director. Jackie explained how flexible support from Feeding America, Kentucky’s Heartland helped his pantry distribute more food to families in need and also allowed them to cover the cost of individuals’ electricity bills to ensure they had heat during the winter months. You can hear from Jackie directly in this video.

Meghan, a community leader and our partner at Kentucky Civic Engagement Table, reminded us of the impact of flexible support on our final day in Kentucky. The organization continues to use GlobalGiving grants to support mutual aid groups and small, grassroots nonprofits that are largely excluded from the larger tornado recovery efforts. Meghan introduced us to two incredible community leaders named Crystal and Cinnamon. Both are driving community-led responses to meet survivors’ needs by providing flexible cash cards to families.

Your generosity has also allowed us to support other key partners through the most recent round of grants, including Kentucky Legal Aid (providing direct legal aid to survivors), and the International Center of Kentucky (providing holistic support to refugees who resettled in the Bowling Green area and were affected by the tornadoes).

Thank you again for your solidarity and support for all tornado-impacted communities. My time in Kentucky showed me how your donation truly makes a difference in advancing community-led disaster recovery.

With immense gratitude, 

Kyra + the GlobalGiving Team

Thank you for your generous donation to GlobalGiving’s Midwest and Southern US Tornado Relief Fund. Nearly eight months after tornadoes struck states including Arkansas, Illinois, Tennessee, and Kentucky, impacted communities still face an extremely long road to recovery. This is especially true in hard-hit communities of western Kentucky, like Mayfield.

In recent months, GlobalGiving made additional grants to vetted nonprofit partners that remain on the front lines of the response in Kentucky and neighboring states. These grants provide flexible program and operational support to allow our partners to be more responsive to emerging gaps in the disaster recovery process.

Here is a summary of some of the critical work you’ve supported through your donation: 

• The Community Foundation of West Kentucky continues to provide critical funding to its network of local grassroots partners across the most severely impacted counties in western Kentucky. For example, the foundation supported its partners at Living Lands and Waters to remove more than 1 million pounds of tornado debris from Kentucky Lake, including appliances, cars, and housing materials. The foundation also serves as a focal point for distributing funding to all Long-Term Recovery Groups (LTRG) in affected Kentucky counties.
  
  
• Feeding America, Kentucky’s Heartland serves all tornado-affected counties in Kentucky through its network of 240 community partners. Since December 2021, the organization has mobilized $2.7 million in resources for tornado relief and recovery efforts. It has also distributed millions of pounds of food and supplies to its network. With the organization’s support, for example, its food pantry partners have been able to obtain commercial refrigerators and cargo vans to transport food.
  
  
• Kentucky Legal Aid actively supports Kentuckians impacted by the tornadoes through free and subsidized legal services. Its team has helped hundreds of families complete FEMA applications and appeals, replace important documents lost in the tornadoes, and access disaster unemployment assistance. The organization is also helping families through insurance issues and scams related to the tornadoes as, unfortunately, many scammers take advantage of families facing immense loss and hardship.
  
  
• The Kentucky Civic Engagement Table remains a critical player in organizing grassroots disaster response groups across Kentucky. Recently, the organization convened more than 20 western Kentucky grassroots leaders for a two-day strategy session to plan their collective disaster relief and recovery efforts. These meetings are critical to ensure organizations collaborate strategically.

• The United Way of Kentucky is providing vital funding and guidance to its local chapters based in tornado-affected counties. In addition, the organization is playing a central role in the Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters (VOAD) networks across all impacted communities. It is also advising local and state leaders on best practices to get much-needed funding to communities that have been neglected.

• The Paducah LGBT Welcome Center (Heartland Equality) has successfully provided cash and emergency supplies to nearly 7,000 storm survivors through its LGBTQ+ Mutual Aid Fund.

• The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee is leveraging its tornado response experience from 2020 to provide flexible funding to the Weakley County LTRG in northwestern Tennessee. The group is made up of representatives from community faith-based groups, local volunteers, and other organizations working to help individuals and families affected by the tornadoes.

• The Food Bank of Northeast Arkansas continues to support impacted community members via food distributions and coordination with other food banks in the communities it serves. The organization has also recently acquired a large generator to improve and secure its food storage systems.

• The Southern Smoke Foundation provides direct cash assistance to individuals in the food and beverage industry in crisis across all states that were impacted by the tornadoes. You can read more here about a restaurant owner in Mayfield, Kentucky that received support from the organization.

As Tony Watkins from the Community Foundation of West Kentucky explained:

“We can still use more support as we are just entering the long-term building facet of this recovery, which will take years.”

Thank you for your solidarity and support for all tornado-impacted communities. The recovery process will not be easy, and it will take many years. GlobalGiving is committed to maintaining this Midwest and Southern US Tornado Relief Fund until early 2024 to ensure long-term support for our trusted nonprofit partners. In the months ahead, we will share another update as our partners’ incredible work continues.

Thank you again for supporting community-led disaster recovery.

With gratitude, 

Kyra + the GlobalGiving Team