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Funds available to help impacted residents after chemical fire

Cleanup begins at the Winston Weaver Fertilizer Plant in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, after a large fire at the site. Paul Garber/WFDD

Residents in Winston-Salem who were forced to leave their homes after a chemical fire can now get some help with their evacuation expenses.

City officials recently announced that the Winston Weaver Fertilizer Plant designated $100,000 dollars to assist with community relief efforts.

So far, the Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest North Carolina received a quarter of that pot. The organization provided meals to families and first responders during the emergency.

A local nonprofit called Love Out Loud has been allocated $50,000. Those funds will be used to directly reimburse those impacted for hotel and other expenses incurred during the evacuation period. They will need to provide proof of residency and receipts.

Liz Miller, with Love Out Loud, says their phone has been ringing off of the hook.

"A lot of the people in the evacuation zone are already individuals that are living at or below the poverty rate, so they don't have just kind of this liquid cash to go stay at a hotel for four nights or go eat out for four days, so the need is definitely great," says Miller.

Residents can call or go to Love Out Loud's website to submit a reimbursement form.

More than 6,000 people were in the one-mile evacuation zone after a fire broke out on January 31 at the Winston Weaver plant.

Miller says her organization expects the need for assistance will be more than what funds are available, and they will be looking for more resources to help fill in the gaps.

Follow WFDD's Keri Brown on Twitter @kerib_news

Keri Brown is a multi-award winning reporter and host at 88.5 WFDD. She has been honored with two regional Edward R. Murrow awards for her stories about coal ash, and was named the 2015 radio reporter of the year by the Radio Television Digital News Association of the Carolinas (RTDNAC).Although she covers a variety of topics, her beats are environmental and education reporting.Keri comes to the Triad from West Virginia Public Broadcasting, where she served as the Chief Bureau Reporter for the Northern Panhandle. She produced stories for the state's Public Television and Radio programs and was honored by the West Virginia Associated Press Broadcasters Association for her feature and enterprise reporting.She also served as an adjunct instructor at Wheeling Jesuit University and Bethany College in West Virginia. She worked with the Center for Educational Technologies in Wheeling, WV, and other NASA centers across the country to develop several stories about the use of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) concepts in the classroom.Keri's journalism career began at WTRF-TV 7 in Wheeling. She worked in several roles at the station, including the head assignment editor. She also was a field producer and assignment manager at WPGH-TV Fox 53 in Pittsburgh.Keri is a graduate of Ohio University. When she's not in the studio or working on a story, she enjoys watching college football with her family, cooking, and traveling.Keri is always looking for another great story idea, so please share them with her. You can follow her on Twitter @kerib_news.

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