TAMPA, Fla. — It’s been more than a month since Hurricane Ian, but the relief efforts continue to help people impacted by the storm. One group in Tampa is collecting, donating, and volunteering to help get those in need back on their feet.
As a nurse, helping is just part of Dezeray Lyn’s DNA. She’s also a volunteer with Mutual Aid Disaster Relief, a grassroots disaster relief network that stepped in to help after Hurricane Ian.
“We believe in solidarity, not charity,” Lyn said. “We’re a community, and we work with other communities supporting them like we would want to be supported ourselves.”
They’ve mobilized to help in a few ways while based out of Waters Avenue Church in Tampa, collecting donations like clothes, food and hygiene items.
People can take what they need for themselves or load up items to take to hurricane-impacted areas. Lyn said they’ve also organized transports of their own, an effort to immediately turn around support to communities in need.
“Our practice is just to open up the vehicles and let people take what they need,” Lyn said. “Just to meet people where they’re at, get them the things that they’re requesting and that they need, and do it in a way that doesn’t have red tape or makes them feel like they’re consumers or they’re powerless, and we’re on equal footing and sharing with another community.”
People can help the helpers, too, by dropping items off in their donation bin or even giving their time.
“People can volunteer. People can donate,” volunteer Jimmy Dunson said. “Anybody can do something, even no matter how small, and we all should be doing what we can with what we have.”
Volunteers with the group know it’s a long-term response and plan to give aid as long as it’s needed.
“We’re just using those things that we believe in of solidarity and being there for each other,” Lyn said. “We’re using it in this day to respond to a storm that happened. Tomorrow, it may be for an influx of COVID cases. The next day, it may be for the next disaster coming, but we want to be here because this is a way of living.”