Healing from Hurricane Helene – East Tennessee Foundation’s Disaster Recovery Response
When emergencies strike East Tennessee’s community, our Neighbor to Neighbor Disaster Relief Fund responds. A key part of our long-term recovery strategy, this Fund is exclusively supporting nonprofits and other agencies aiding East Tennessee’s recovery from Hurricane Helene – now considered the deadliest and among the costliest storms to hit the U.S. since Hurricane Katrina.
Collective Impact: $5 Million in 118 Disaster Recovery Grants Awarded as of July 17, 2025
The East Tennessee Foundation (ETF) has awarded 118 grants totaling more than $5 million to accelerate the region’s long-term recovery across East Tennessee communities impacted by Hurricane Helene in September 2024.
We continue hearing community needs and processing grant requests weekly to support East Tennessee’s long-term recovery. Previous announcements about our collective recovery impact include:
- June – July 2025
- May 2025
- April 2025
- March 2025
- Launching Long-Term Recovery Groups
- February 2025
- January 2025
- December 2024
- November 2024
- October 2024
- Neighbor to Neighbor Disaster Relief Fund Activat
For a comprehensive list of grants awarded through our Neighbor to Neighbor Disaster Relief Fund, please click here.
More on Our Role in Recovery
For nearly 40 years, the ETF has stepped up to support our region’s needs and recovery from other crises. On September 27, 2024, Hurricane Helene brought severe storms across East Tennessee significantly affecting the ETF’s service area. The Foundation immediately activated the Neighbor to Neighbor Disaster Relief Fund to support community needs and recovery efforts throughout East Tennessee.
Hurricane Helene marked the fourth time in 12 years that the ETF leveraged our Neighbor to Neighbor Disaster Relief Fund to support community needs resulting from a disaster. Through these experiences we have learned, both from our community and from disaster philanthropy and recovery experts, the importance of locally led solutions.
The pinnacle of the ETF’s community investments has been the launching of six formal Long-Term Recovery Groups (LTRGs) – now established in East Tennessee’s counties which were most significantly affected across the disaster-declared region.
Today, communities in Carter, Cocke, Greene, Johnson, Unicoi, and Washington counties are benefiting from our collective contributions by having their own LTRGs. These groups, considered a best practice by disaster experts, reflect local cultures in their makeup and operations to effectively coordinate and channel resources to individuals and communities.
Building a strong, locally led structure is a key part of our recovery strategy. Northeast Tennessee’s Regional Director of Long-Term Recovery, a position we funded through United Way of East Tennessee Highlands, is strengthening local leadership alongside the First Tennessee Development District. Together, these partners are maximizing resources with LTRGs across the region to expedite recovery.
As our neighbors face a new reality, these LTRGs are addressing everything from case and construction management, communications and ongoing donations, emotional and spiritual care, and other unmet needs. We are honored to stand these LTRGs up and stand beside them to keep meeting community needs and build future preparedness.
The ETF has 18 community fund advisory groups made up of 150 local leaders throughout the region, including several in the impacted communities. We are strategically partnering with those local representatives, as well as many others in our network, to ensure we are listening, learning, and maximizing impacts where they are most needed.
Thank You for Supporting East Tennessee's Relief, Response, and Recovery
Our disaster-related community investments are made possible by more than 7,400 donations to our Neighbor to Neighbor Disaster Relief Fund, the ETF’s Donor Advised Funds, and Community Funds. The ETF is humbled, honored, and inspired by the life-changing generosity extended to rebuild and recover communities affected across our service territory.
Supporting permanent disaster solutions, our mission-minded donors are bridging gaps in early childhood education, economic prosperity, environmental mitigation, mental health services, legal aid, and much more.
We continue collaborating with a variety of partners, including donors, frontline nonprofits, and other funders, to multiply and mobilize resources to help our neighbors. Thank you for your support of our work to make lives better and communities stronger in East Tennessee.
