Man brings grill and truckload of food to help tornado victims in Kentucky
A man is doing his part to help people affected by the tornadoes that ripped through the South and Midwest over the weekend.
He drove to Mayfield, Kentucky to set up a grill and feed people.
“This man drove half an hour with a grill and a truckload of food and parked right in the middle of #Mayfield, Kentucky,” Victor Ordonez captioned the clip he posted on Twitter.
“I know they don’t have no electricity, so that means they don’t have no electric, no restaurants, no running water, so I just figured I’d do what I can do,” the man, identified as Jim Finch, said. “Show up with some food and some water.”
Another tweet provided a panoramic look at the area, as buildings were leveled.
“This was the scene right before Jim Finch, the man in the video, set up his grill,” Ordonez wrote. “There was later Church service in that parking lot across from him.”
Finch’s efforts were applauded.
“That panorama is horrific," someone wrote. "Jim Finch brings light. I am sure the church service did too and so do you for documenting it.”
“What a blessing he is. He is warming hearts and bellies with his act of kindness,” another person wrote.
“Such a kind human being. I am humbled by his generosity of spirit!” someone else commented.
Mayfield was particularly devastated by the tornadoes. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said there were more than 100 people inside a candle factory in the town when it collapsed.
“That will be, we believe, the largest site, the largest place of loss,” he told Weekend TODAY. In a press conference Saturday, Beshear estimated that 40 people had been rescued from the factory.
More than 60 people have died and over 100 people are still unaccounted for, the governor said Monday.
One man who did not survive was Joe Ward, who started working at the factory a few weeks ago in order to save money so they could buy a house for the combined eight kids he had with his girlfriend.
One of the people who did made it out of the candle factory is Kyanna Parsons-Perez.
“It was extremely scary,” she said on Weekend TODAY. “Everything happened so fast. They had us in the area where you go in case there’s a storm, and we were all there. Then, the lights got to flickering, and then all of a sudden, we felt a gust of — we could feel the wind. Then, my ears kind of started popping, you know, as they would as if you’re on a plane.”
Despite the tragedy, there have been glimmers of hope. In addition to Finch’s efforts, an altar that has a carving of Michelangelo’s The Last Supper at the First Christian Church of Mayfield didn’t suffer any damage, even though the rest of the building was destroyed.
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