Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Clark County residents hit hard by this year’s severe flooding of the Kentucky River got help from a long way away this week.

A group of students from Gannon University in Erie, Pennsylvania, volunteered with Habitat for Humanity of Madison and Clark Counties to help with flood relief efforts on Amster Grove and at the Watefront restaurant on Ford Road, which has reopened.

They also helped with a Habitat construction project in Berea.

“Obviously, there’s a lot of crossover between affordable housing issues and flood relief,” and “it’s a great opportunity for the students” to work in the community, Hope Broecker, the Habitat program manager, said.

Because of COVID, Habitat has had a hard time in the past year recruiting volunteers, she said, so they have used small groups like the university students on some of their projects and have contracted out other work.

Habitat is also about to start working on a project in Winchester this summer.

Larilynn Koury, who chairs the board of the local affiliate, said that the group is committed to building a house on Lincoln Street this year as part of a city urban renewal project funded by a state grant. It plans to then build four more next year.

Trident Financial is the group’s backer on the Winchester house build.

Koury said the group will use a “safe build” approach involving volunteers from local churches.