TN gets $4.6M flood grant for jobs, Catholic Charities calls for more aid

The U.S. Department of Labor has awarded $4.67 million to the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development in order to create temporary jobs in the wake of this month's devastating flooding.

“The images of Nashville under water have been heart-breaking,” said Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis. “This grant will support ongoing recovery efforts and provide temporary employment to Tennesseans as they clean-up flood-impacted areas and return their lives to normalcy.”

The announcement comes the same day that Catholic Charities USA announced that it has not seen the same level of giving in response to Nashville's flooding that it saw in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the Haiti earthquake. The huge human services and disaster response organizer also said that giving in the wake of the Gulf oil spill has also been disappointing.

"While our local Catholic Charities' agencies in New Orleans and Nashville are fully engaged and receiving strong local and institutional support, we are not seeing the generosity of individual Americans across-the-board," said Rev. Larry Snyder, President and CEO of Catholic Charities USA, in a news release. "Frankly, Nashville's flood devastation has been somewhat overshadowed by the oil spill, and the entire Gulf Coast situation has been more of a business story and technology remediation story than anything that truly portrays the human impact. The good hearts of our country have not been touched in a way to feel a need to contribute."



Read more: TN gets $4.6M flood grant for jobs, Catholic Charities calls for more aid - Nashville Business Journal