Hundreds of volunteers clean Jacksonville Beach after Hurricane Matthew

Nearly 1,000 volunteers spent the day cleaning up the beaches after Hurricane Matthew.

Volunteers hit the sand, ready to get their beach back to normal.

“I’m gonna clean all this mess,” a young volunteer said.

It’s Latoya Jerido and her three daughters' first time volunteering at a beach cleanup.

“As devastating as it was, I just felt the need to do something about it,” Jerido said.

And she’s not alone. It’s an annual cleanup, but this one is different, coming in the wake of Hurricane Matthew.

Hundreds of volunteers signed up.

“And to see it wrecked like this, I can’t imagine how you wouldn’t want to invest and to show up and to play a part in getting it back to what it used to be,” Sarah Stewart, another volunteer, said.

Volunteers had buckets full of dangerous items.

“A bar glass, a shoe, and a board with nails,” a volunteer said.

It’s a place many call home, and their hope is to keep it that way.

“I mean our children come and play here, and if it’s not safe to go, we wouldn’t want to call it home. But we do, and we got to invest,” Stewart said.

Cox Media Group