Damaged house in the Rockaways. Matt Kliegman

East Villagers continue to band together to help bring relief to the storm-battered Rockaways, where thousands are still without power or heat.

On the Sunday after Hurricane Sandy struck, Emmett Shine – founder of Gin Lane Media, a Bowery-based branding and design company – and James Cruickshank, his partner in Lola and an owner of Whitmans restaurant on East Fifth Street, poured into a 15-seat passenger van with 14 other people and headed out to the ravaged peninsula. They ended up at the Rockaway Beach Surf Club at Beach 87th Street, where Lava Girl Surf was leading a community relief effort.

“We were so impressed that this whole grassroots organization had flourished at this beach club,” said Rebecca Zhou, 22, a strategist at Gin Lane.

The group broke into teams of five and began distributing donated items. “That day people in our group cleaned out flooded basements and helped people clear out moldy, wet furniture,” said Ms. Zhou, who went door-to-door, checking on the elderly residents of a high-rise apartment complex. Read more…