After spending days without power, volunteers like Miles Mulrain with Let Your Voice Be Heard used a Rio Grande home as a base of operations.

  • Grassroots groups trying to address overlooked needs, communities
  • Holding several cookouts this weekend in Orlando
  • Also trying to help people get FEMA assistance

He is part of a grassroots effort to collect diapers, toiletries, ice and other essentials. They'll be delivered, along with hundreds of meals they are preparing, to people struggling after Irma.

“We really salute all the different community and government movements that have been going on to help the people, but we still see gaps missing right now. So we are trying to fill them in and find out which needs to be fixed," he explained.

To find out, some went door to door to survey the needs of those who need help the most post-Irma.

 “A lot of times our local government is telling us to go to the national government," Mulrain said. "The national government is saying they're over-filled. So we need to find a way to take care of our own people, and that's what this whole movement is all about.”

They are also hosting several community cookouts focusing on areas without power like Pine Hills, Apopka and Kissimmee.

Yulissa Arce with Organize Florida helped out at an Oak Ridge event Friday.

“We really just banded together. We've worked together in the past and just saw the high need post-Hurricane Irma within our communities,” she said of the groups joining forces.

These events are a way to teach residents about the benefits available through DCF, FEMA and emergency assistance programs.

The groups are planning large scale cookouts this weekend to feed thousands of people who need help. It will be Saturday and Sunday at Lake Lorna Doone Park at 5 p.m. in Orlando.

People who want to donate and volunteer are needed too.

If you’d like to donate, these events are partially funded by the Irma Community Recovery Fund.