CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – With the leadership of the United Way of the Greater Nashville Region, as well as local government, non-profits and churches, the newly forming Clarksville chapter of the Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (VOAD) coalition has been serving people throughout Montgomery County since the flooding on Feb. 15.

According to Lori Shinton, a spokesperson with the United Way of the Greater Nashville Region, 79 people have requested assistance since this past Saturday through the Clarksville Montgomery County Long-Term Recovery Group database. Not only can use request for help through the website, but you can also donate and eventually sign up as a volunteer too. Volunteer opportunities should open up after the upcoming week, Shinton said.

“About 40 of them are homeowners, and we know for a fact that we haven’t heard from everybody from The Retreat at Concord Apartment Complex just yet,” Shinton told Clarksville Now. “Because it’s so new, I feel like those numbers will continue to grow. One of the things I want to make sure the community understands is that we’re trying to meet immediate needs right now, but there is definitely going to be long-term needs.

“Most people who have been impacted, that I’m aware of so far, don’t have flood insurance because they aren’t technically in a flood zone. We, the non-profit community, initially try to help everybody but ultimately, we try to help people who don’t have the resources to recover from the event on their own,” Shinton said.

Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (VOAD)

Shinton said the Clarksville VOAD coalition has been in the process of setting up for the past three months, and it’s made up of a lot of the same people and organizations that got engaged in tornado relief following the natural disaster that hit Clarksville in December of 2023.

“We started setting up the VOAD and then we had the flooding. So, the good news is we’ve been in contact with all of these partners all along. It made it easy to get everybody on the call Saturday.”

Shinton said when she received word that Montgomery County was going to open their Emergency Operations Center at 5 p.m. this past Saturday, the first thing they did was set up a call with the non-profits and churches in the area who had been working on tornado recovery for over a year now. “Part of what this collaboration has been doing is figuring out how we can respond as quickly as possible,” Shinton said.

Next, they set up the portal where residents around Montgomery County could request assistance, which gets triaged and sent to different non-profits for whatever services they may be able to provide, Shinton said. She said a lot of the early referrals have gone to YAIPak, as well as the Red Cross, who had been giving flood-affected residents essentials.

“At some point, we realized the Concord Apartment Complex got hit pretty hard. So, when we opened that link, by Monday morning we already had 38 people who that had raised their hand and said they needed assistance,” Shinton said. “I was making calls to them to try and figure out what they need. I talked to one of the individuals from the apartment, and she had to leave so quickly she left everything behind. So, she didn’t have anything, but she did have a place to stay thankfully. I was able to make a couple of referrals for her to get some of her essential items and things like that.”

Now, with more than 70 people requesting assistance, the newly forming Clarksville-Montgomery County Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster is dedicated to serving and preparing our community for disasters and disaster type events, said Shinton. “We are a collaboration of churches, non-profits and local government that is here to support our community when we face challenges like the tornado of 2023 and the flood that happened on February 15th.”

List of organizations serving flood-affected community members

Here is a list of local government agencies, non-profits and churches that have been serving alongside the United Way of the Greater Nashville Region. 

  • Mosaic Church
  • YAIPak
  • TWKUMC (TN Western Kentucky United Methodist Conference)
  • TALS (TN Alliance for Legal Services)
  • City of Clarksville
  • Montgomery County Government
  • Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee
  • United Way of Greater Nashville
  • Clarksville-Montgomery Long-Term Recovery Group
  • Community Action Agency
  • Veterans Coalition
  • Operation Stand Down
  • Irene Center for Hope
  • American Red Cross
  • Montgomery County Emergency Management Agency
  • Team Rubicon
  • Salvation Army
  • Manna Café
  • Urban Ministries
  • Clarksville-Montgomery County VOAD