This weekend thousands of volunteers in yellow shirts converged on southeast Louisiana.

"We've brought in thousands of folks this weekend and several thousands of folks that will be coming over the next weekends to help in the cleanup efforts associated with Hurricane Ida," said Baton Rouge L.D.S. President Eric Bascom.

The group is called Helping Hands, a charity that's part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Marcus Gengler has been volunteering with Helping Hands for years. His group came from Dothan, Alabama.

"What we're here to do is really to help people who have fallen trees or have debris and need some support to help get cleaned up," Gengler said.

He says the reason so many volunteers showed up is simple.

"I would say it really comes down to the foundation of our faith and serving our fellow beings. We believe our father in heaven asked us to love our god and our neighbors, and this our way of giving back to our neighbors through service."

Neighbors like Mae Matthews, who lives in Vacherie.

"It spared our lives and everything, and we're grateful for that, but it's just kind of hard to start all over, so we just have to take it one day at a time," Matthews said.

Matthews says she wouldn't know what to do if Helping Hands wasn't there.

"It just feels wonderful, you know, because they are so good to be giving up their time to come and help us, and we really appreciate it because we wouldn't know where to turn if we didn't have people like them."