NAPPANEE — Last year, the Nappanee community joined forces to help devastated tornado victims. Now they are at work again, this time helping victims of an "economic tornado."

The grassroots effort is helping the unemployed get back on their feet.

"We've never in our history seen a downturn in our economy like this," said Nappanee Mayor Larry Thompson.

Nappanee and nearby Wakarusa were hit hard when area RV plants closed. Both towns have joined forces with a number of local faith based groups and churches to help the unemployed. It's called the Wa-Nee Economic Recovery Committee, or WERC.

"Number one priority of this group is to find jobs," Thompson explained. "As everyone knows, that's still a very difficult thing — if there are no jobs we can't do that. And that's when we fill in the blanks by helping with any kind of needs that our people have that are out of work.”

The goal with this grassroots effort is to be able to provide every conceivable type of help and assistance for those unemployed, with the idea of getting them back in the workforce very soon.

Kay Miller heads the group and is a case manager for those needing help.

"What I do is I guide the people to what is available to help me right now and then long term what is available to help me get on my feet again," she said.

Donny Gaut was laid off from an RV plant in April and still hasn't found a new job.

"Everybody needs to take advantage of this because I don't know if the manufacturing jobs are going to come back or not,” said Gaut. “So you gotta kind of venture on and get something new going on.”

To contact WERC, click the link in the Related Content box.