 Shaping our Appalachian region, or SOAR, has launched a fund to help students affected by flooding. With the Eastern Kentucky Student Support Fund, SOAR will be working directly with school resource centers to better assist in the distribution of needed items. I mean obviously the flooding has just it's just crazy the amount of devastation. So you know one of our concerns has been thinking about already the long term recovery because communities that were hit hard. I mean it's it's not something that's going to be fixed and a matter of weeks or months. You know immediately we thought about students right specifically K through 12 students. These students are already struggling from COVID right and a lot that got set behind because the impacts of COVID and so you know our hypothesis was is you know what can we specifically do to help mitigate any flood related impacts for those students. My name is Aaron Crump, Chief Medical Officer at Pikeville Medical Center. The Heart and Vascular Institute it's really an incredible program made incredible because of the providers because of the technology and because of the staff. We've truly become the leading provider of Heart and Vascular Services in Eastern Kentucky and in fact what we do compares to anywhere in the nation. Pikeville Medical Center, when it comes to your heart, place your care in our hands. SOAR has already raised over $60,000 through private donations from corporate donors and individuals. We're not going to be able to do everything for everybody but what is an area that we can really try to focus in and make a difference and we're thinking about students and we're thinking about things like laptops, Chromebooks. You know we had one superintendent tell us probably a thousand Chromebooks were lost so the the needs at school for technology equipment supplies then also when that student goes home or wherever they're sleeping. As so many have been affected by the flooding much support is still needed. We're going to need help for a long time right and these students they're our future so that's where we're going to start and um and yeah any support would be greatly appreciated. Anyone who would like to donate to the fund can visit the SOAR website at soar-ky.org. For Mountain Top News, I'm Kelsey Dean.