Flooding across eastern Kentucky last year put children at great risk
In 2022, deadly and destructive flooding across eastern Kentucky washed away roads and bridges, as nearly 45 people lost their lives. Learning was interrupted for thousands of children for several weeks.
Save the Children’s emergency response team and local program staff in Kentucky, where we have worked since 1932, worked around the clock to meet the most urgent needs of children living in some of the areas hardest hit.
Your donation to Save the Children’s United States Program Support helps ensure children affected by disaster can quickly return to quality learning environments and routines, and have access to social emotional support programming that helps them cope and be resilient.
Our work to meet the most urgent – and the long-term – needs of children by the flooding in eastern Kentucky
With emergency supplies pre-positioned ahead of the flooding, we delivered essential items to eastern Kentucky kids, families and communities – including water, cash cards, hygiene kits, diapers, wipes, cribs, and cleaning supplies for schools – and helped provide critical meals to affected families.
Save the Children has also worked to help children return to learning and support back-to-school efforts at school districts that saw their schools inundated with floodwaters, or completely destroyed.
We distributed backpacks filled with learning materials and supplies to children whose schools were delayed in reopening, and books to families to encourage reading at home. We also provided students with digital library subscriptions.
Save the Children has provided children, families and schools throughout eastern Kentucky with tens of thousands of new children books to help replace those lost in the flooding.
Jennifer Garner talks about her mission with Save the Children to help the community in Perry County, Kentucky, still on the road to recovery more than a year after historic flooding. She then surprises students with a donation from Scholastic. NBC’s Cynthia McFadden reports for TODAY on effort to improve the lives school kids impacted by the disaster.
In Photos: 2022 Kentucky Floods
Join us in giving children growing up in rural America the opportunity for a brighter future
Save the Children also knows all too well how a hungry child cannot be hungry for knowledge. That’s why we are committed to combatting child hunger across rural Kentucky and America, collaborating with partners to ensure children have the nutritious food they need to keep their bellies full and their minds actively learning.
Your continued support is needed now more than ever to keep this important work going.