Curled in a chair with knees up to chin, phone pressed to ear and toddler trying to open her shirt, Jessica Cotterell seems in her element, as she calmly copes with an incoming tide of calls, emails and visitors...

She's barefoot, almost as if she's about to wade through the sea of clothing and home supplies assembled around her, and she addresses helpers with the banter of a salty sea captain.

Volunteer Jessica takes a brief break from the flood of recovery work

It's almost as if things have always been this way, but Jessica and a few friends started the CQ Helping Hands organisation less than six weeks ago, when floods were on their way to Central Queensland.

You can contact cqhelpinghands@hotmail.com to offer a hand.

It's not as if they did not have anything better to do. One of the first Helping Hands volunteers has six children and Jessica has been juggling university study with looking after four kids. Her husband Joseph has been helping with clean-up and deliveries after he finishes his work shift each afternoon.

"I dropped out of school in Year 9," Jessica said. 

"I was always good at school so I don't know what happened there...I had my first kid at 16, had three by the age of 20 and now I've got four. But I always knew I'd get back into study.

"I did the STEPS preparatory program and then took up a Bachelor of Arts to get my grade point average up enough to enrol in CQUniversity's new Law degree this year."

Jessica in a sea of donated clothes and household goods, along with a few of her helpers

Now aged 26, Jessica says the CQ Helping Hands idea took off like a freight train once people heard about it.

"I rang Rockhampton Regional Council and asked what their plans were for people but they said they couldn't do anything until the recovery phase which meant people would go home and have to wait a few weeks for them to organise all of that," she said.

"So we started collecting clothes with one donated storage shed and one turned into seven and that turned into three towns we were helping and that turned into donations from abroad, so we went and got our Office of Fair Trading sanction so we could fundraise as well, and we got permission to use a empty shop.

"Now we have clean-up crews going out every day helping to bring the rubbish out of the house to the curb, cleaning up the deluge that's left in their housing. As well as clothes, we also have furniture, linen, towels, food hampers and toiletry packs.

Jessica juggles her family and community roles

"Other agencies have been too busy with the emergency side to worry about the recovery phase. I went to the Red Cross evacuation centre and took them 84 toiletry packs and took direct requests for other things they needed, such as a microwave for heating baby bottles ... we got contacts and had follow-up calls for clothing and bedding... the council were referring people to us."

Jessica said she detected an attitude from some in the community that people from low-income suburbs should just be grateful for three meals a day, but reckons the class system should be irrelevant.

"If someone's house is flooded with water and they are not allowed home then they are just as bad off as someone whose house seems to be nice and is flooded.

"We started Helping Hands so we would not be confined by red tape and other people's ethos. The other agencies have guidelines and can't step out of them. They were busy with evacuations and emergency stuff so their resources were stretched. We found a place where we could step in and assist in that little niche."

Jessica take a brief break from leading recovery operations

Jessica says she started Helping Hands out of her car, driving around with her kids, before a group of faithful friends got involved.

"My friend would come and sit with me in the hot sun outside the depot and then we had a gazebo donated. We take the donations and sort them and bring them here to the shop.

"The community response has been pretty overwhelming. They all wanted to get in and help straight away as well.

"One lady from Port Curtis went into labour and while she was having the baby her house got flooded out. She had two other kids and a premmie baby and did not want to go to the evacuation centre so I made a few hours of phone calls and finally Rydges resort donated some accommodation so they could have a break.

"We've been trying to help people in rural areas who are flooded but who don't qualify for council help because they are not in the river zone. We've tried to help people who fall through the cracks because it's the same rain from the same sky."

Jessica is determined to keep CQ Helping Hands going, even after the immediate crisis phase, and plans to offer gainful roles for people with disabilities who are unable to gain employment elsewhere due to red tape, hoping they can be integrated into society. She's aware of her issue as her sister has autism.

She's also aware that her headquarters beside B&J Car Sales in Musgrave Street is due to be demolished but laughs it off, saying that "we can just go underground for a while until we find another place".