Civilian workers at Fort Campbell and Christian County along the Tennessee line are going without pay.

County leaders are rallying around the workers and plan to host a resource fair to help folks make ends meet.

Our Emily Sisk has more.

We are joined now by the judge, executive of Christian County, Jerry Gillam.

Thank you so much for being with us.

And we want to ask you about this resource fair that Christian County is going to hold.

Tell us about it.

What is the need for this resource fair?

Well, we have been pretty engaged with, Fort Campbell, since the beginning of the shutdown.

And we discovered that there are, some voids with the civilian workforce.

And we wanted to certainly, be able to provide some kind of assistance to those folks, or at least awareness so they can know and be able to plan.

As I said, not to receive a paycheck.

In this next week.

And for folks who maybe don't know when we talk about the civilian workforce, what does that mean?

And how many people does that include?

It's a great question.

So we have a civilian workforce that actually participate and work alongside our active duty soldiers at Fort Campbell.

So the garrison, which is kind of the, city at home within Fort Campbell, has along with the the VOC or the Blanchfield Army Community Hospital, each together have about 2000 employees that are, not military or civilian workforce.

So and then when you take all the other, contractors and other, civilians, that totals around 4000 people.

So it's a larger impact.

And, of course, our active duty did receive pay, you know, the 15, there, assuming that we're going to see them get paid again this week.

But we know the civilian workforce probably will not get paid the ones that are actually furloughed.

Okay.

And so for this resource fair, what kind of resources would that include.

We're going to have list of food banks that are available.

We've worked with our shelters and hopefully be able to actually work with property management, companies.

So any rent that may be due.

We're looking into opportunities that that they can be able to, inform these management companies of their situation and hopefully be able to work something out along with our utility partners, being able to identify the reasons that they're being furloughed and, even psychological, opportunity.

The control center is going to be there, and hopefully we'll get some help they need.

So basically just, if nothing else, for them to feel like they are, they're thought about and we care about them and they're part of our community, and we certainly want to do what we can and do our part.

To help them through this tough times.

You know, we all indications today that when the shut down is, gone, they will receive back pay.

But until that they're doing that.

So they're part of our community.

And and like any good community to get a supporting other.

And that's certainly what we want to do here.

Yes.

Well this is great information to know.

So, judge Executive Gillam, we appreciate your time.

And thank you for telling us about this.

Thank you.

Emily.

Thanks, Emily.

The resource fair is next Tuesday and Wednesday at Valor Hall and Oak Grove.