Louisiana volunteers are helping in the aftermath of a deadly tornado outbreak in Nashville, Tennessee. United Cajun Navy founder Todd Terrell says the organization often recruits volunteers as the need for help arises.
“We have six of our team leaders from United Cajun Navy on the ground and from there we kind of multiply and reach out and get spontaneous volunteers. Yesterday we had 27 volunteers on the ground. Today we’ve got 43,” said Terrell.
Terrell says they’ve recruited volunteers from Tennessee, Alabama, and Kentucky to assist in their efforts and expects the number of volunteers to grow.
The United Cajun Navy is no stranger in helping following disasters. With this deployment, they are currently helping to feed a group of about 500. Terrell says it is basic hotdogs and hamburgers for now, but Cajun cuisine is on the way.
“It’s going to take us another couple of days to get our Louisiana teams up here doing jambalaya in bigger amounts, but right now we are just trying to take care of our volunteers and some of the first responders and some of the ones that are really affected,” said Terrell.
Terrell says they have partnered with a church in the area to establish a home base where they can receive any sort of contributions that Louisiana residents would like to send to help.
“We have an Amazon Wishlist that people can purchase products that are on that list and they get shipped directly to the church or they can make a financial contribution on our United Cajun Navy Facebook page,” said Terrell.
At least 24 people are dead as the result of the early Tuesday morning tornado outbreak and many are still unaccounted for.