$1.2 million in new federal funding is coming to help eastern Kentucky recover from the deadly 2022 floods.
Peter Hille is the Mountain Association president. He said these funds will be used to bolster their work with business support services.
“Which is technical assistance and consulting that we provide to small businesses and nonprofits to help them improve their operations, it will also support our lending work.”
He said one of their major concerns is the loss of workers as coal jobs disappear.
“As a result of that, we have lost population across this region, in some places, half their population or more over a 70 year period, and the people we’ve lost are the workers, because when the mines would go into one of those downturns, the workers would leave.”
Hille said the $1.2 million comes from the Economic Development Administration. It will be used to help small businesses that were impacted by the July 2022 floods by helping them develop disaster response plans.
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