(LEX 18) — A local nonprofit is stepping up to help families in Eastern Kentucky recover from last week's winter storm, and as temperatures stay cold and roads remain icy, staff say they'll be there as long as people need them.
"We want to make sure people are going to stay warm and make sure they have food to eat," said Tina Bryson with Christian Appalachian Project.
Before the first snowflake even fell, CAP already had a plan.
"We knew that the meteorologists were expecting several inches of snow, there might be power outages, so we proactively reached out to our families to make sure they had what they needed," said Bryson.
Teams from the nonprofit's pantry network delivered emergency food boxes to hundreds of households ahead of the storm.
"So now it's following up and checking in daily to make sure participants are still in good shape and don't need any kind of emergency assistance," said Bryson.
The nonprofit serves all 13 states in the Appalachian region, including 17 counties in Kentucky, helping everyone from school-aged children to seniors. They work closely with local school districts and emergency management.
"When there's a storm like this schools are closed," Bryson said. "Our students, we want to make sure they're still being supported. We reach out through our teachers and case workers to make sure our preschoolers have what they need and we're able to send lessons home ahead of the storm to make sure there's no loss of learning."
Home repair teams delivered 140 generators and portable heaters to help people stay warm.
"For folks who maybe were on oxygen, if power went out, that's a dire circumstance they're in," said Bryson.
As recovery continues, CAP staff say experience makes all the difference.
"I think a lot of it is, you've been through this before, and you learn from those experiences to anticipate, and how to prepare ahead of the storm," said Bryson.
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