Community organizations are providing food, ice, and water to residents in Gary as thousands of families continue to wait for power to be restored following days of severe weather across northwest Indiana.

Late Monday, Indiana Gov. Mike Braun announced $5,000 grants to help storm victims across the state. The money can be used for basic needs, including food and clothing.

One organization, Eight Days of Hope, traveled from Louisiana to assist with relief efforts and is helping serve nearly 2,000 meals a day to families who have spent nearly a week without electricity.

"It's always a privilege no matter where we go, which part of the country, just to be able to serve," said Darren Bellanger of Eight Days of Hope.

Bellanger said the group's commitment to the community will continue as long as assistance is needed.

"We're not going to leave until we feel that the need is no longer," he said.

Across from the YWCA of Gary, Eight Days of Hope, NIPSCO, the Urban League, the Salvation Army and other organizations are distributing meals and supplies to help residents cope with ongoing outages.

Among them is Gary resident Inez Barry, who said she has been without power for six days while caring for her paralyzed son.

RELATED | Track power outages in your area with the ABC7 Chicago Power Outage Tracker

"I have a son at home who's you know paralyzed as well too, so it's miserable for him too as well. Just not having no Wi-Fi, not having internet, not having air conditioner, but just got to be patient," Barry said.

Without a reliable way to keep her phone charged, Barry said she has had to find alternative solutions.

"Just usually go to my car, and I just powered up in my car as well too, because it goes dead so quickly," she said.

NIPSCO officials said the storms and resulting outages have created significant challenges for customers and restoration crews.

"It's been, it's been really unprecedented. Not just the storm and the size and the magnitude of this storm, but we've had really storm after storm," said Vince Parisi, president and chief operating officer at NIPSCO.

NIPSCO said last Tuesday marked the most destructive storm to the power grid in recent history.

Other northwest Indiana communities, including Dyer, Merrillville and Hammond, are also experiencing outages.

According to NIPSCO, crews are continuing restoration efforts for tens of thousands of customers. It could be Wednesday night before everyone's power is restored.

Despite the prolonged outage, Barry said she remains hopeful.

"We can endure for a night, but joy coming in the morning. I know it's just temporary," she said.

People living in Gary are still wrapping their heads around the destruction left behind following last week's powerful storms.

Several trees were uprooted and crushed people's homes. Crews were out Monday morning removing down trees.

"I looked out the door, I saw the tree on the car.. I just closed the door, I didn't even want to process that right then," Gary resident Hampton Hinton said.

Hinton said his home was spared from the damage. But he joins thousands of people who have been without electricity for days.

"I had to throw out all my food out and the bad part about it, I had just went grocery shopping and bought a lot of stuff that I planned to barbecue for the rest of the summer," Hinton said.

The same goes for Annie Williams, who also lives in Gary. She's been using a generator in the meantime, as she waits for her power to be restored.

"It's hard getting around," Williams said. "I don't have a car because I have neuropathy, and I try to call people but the internet was down, so had to use my legs to buy a generator.

The same storm system also hit parts of Chicago's south suburbs. Hundreds of trees were knocked down.

On Sunday, leaders in the south suburbs called on Gov. JB Pritzker to ask the federal government for help. On Monday, the governor said he would.

But that there is a process to try and meet thresholds that the governor says the Trump administration has raised.

The good news in Illinois is that ComEd says all customers impacted by last week's storms should have their power back on.

Now, some of those same crews are heading to Indiana to help power restoration efforts there.

Relief efforts were scheduled to continue through the evening, with another round of meals available at the Gary distribution site beginning at 4:30 p.m. The site was expected to remain open until 6 p.m.