On Friday, United Way of the Coalfield donated $157,899.20 to the Hopkins County Long Term Recovery Group to help them build a storage building.
Don Howerton, executive director for United Way of the Coalfield, said the money is not local dollars. It is money brought in to help in the long run.
He said the money came from the United Way of Kentucky Local United Way Capacity Initial Response Grant Fund and the Donor Restricted Funding Process. United Way of Kentucky raised over $4.5 million in the tornado relief fund, and they only distributed a little over $1.5 million to the United Way in areas affected by the tornado.
“There is more coming,” he said.
United Way of Kentucky asked the local United Ways to work with the Long Term Recovery Groups in their region to determine what they needed.
The grant the Hopkins County Long Term Recovery Group wrote, with the help of the Pennyrile Area Development District, asked for $146,815.85 from the Capacity Initial Response Grant and $10,176.54 from the Donor Restricted Grant to build a facility that would serve as the Hopkins County Long Term Disaster Recovery Warehouse and Distribution Center for current and future needs.
Mike Duncan, the co-chair for the Long Term Recovery Group, said they are working on getting property in the Barnsley area ready for construction.
“We can distribute all over the county from the Barnsley area,” he said.
Hopkins County Magistrate Charles Beshears said the donation is probably one of the best gifts the county could receive at this time because they are accepting lots of donations with no place to store them.
Dawson Springs City Councilman Mark McGregor, who was filling in for the Dawson Springs Mayor, said the donation is a great thing.
“It is a tremendous help because we have donations coming in from all over the country, and we have no place to store them,” he said.