By Azriel James Relph
Azriel.james.relph@gmail.com
Gary LeBlanc didn’t get a good night’s sleep for nine months after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans.After returning home to Virginia from volunteering in New Orleans, LeBlanc would toss and turn in his bed, waking again and again each night to jot down ideas for how to better serve people in need.
On Thanksgiving Day in Hunts Point, those sleepless nights bore fruit as The Mercy Chefs’ mobile kitchen rolled up to the Hunts Point Recreation Center on Manida Street to serve some of the city’s neediest a complete and complimentary holiday feast. The meal, hosted by the New Season Christian Center, which holds its Sunday services at The Rec, fed 400 people on turkey and all the trimmings.
The Christian Center was introduced to Virginia-based Mercy Chefs by The Bowery Mission. The mobile kitchen that Leblanc and his team of volunteers brought to Hunts Point is a 32-foot trailer, optimized for cooking in emergency situations. It is capable of purifying four to five thousand gallons of water and serving thousands of meals a day. Mercy Chefs currently has two of these custom trailers, though LeBlanc hopes to have five within three years and wants to be able to serve a million meals a day down the road.
When they are not responding to natural disasters like this year’s Hurricane Gustav in Louisiana and Ike in Texas or the floods in Iowa and Ohio, Mercy Chefs (an all-volunteer, faith-based non profit) looks for places like Hunts Point to offer its services.
“One of our focuses is to get out into communities and support local churches that couldn’t do an outreach due to lack of kitchen facilities,” said LeBlanc. “We feed people wherever there is need.”
One thing that set this Thanksgiving outreach in Hunts Point apart from similar efforts was the quality of the meal.
“We take it to a more professional level,” boasted LeBlanc, who worked across the country in four- and five-star resorts for 25 years before founding Mercy Chefs. The goal is to do the best job possible with the kind of bulk commodity foods the organization receives from donors and food banks.
The dining options included turkey, gravy, potatoes of the mashed and sweet variety, stuffing, mixed vegetables, apple and cranberry sauces, as well as a choice of five different types of desserts. (The pumpkin pie was the most popular, though the coconut custard pie also went fast). The quality of the cooking did not go unnoticed by the patrons.
Two men, who declined to give their names, found out about the meal from a New Season church member who was passing out flyers on the streets they call home. Both men went back for second and third helpings. One described it as the best meal he’d had in years. The Mendozas, a family with seven mouths to feed who found out about the meal through the local Head Start program, were able to enjoy their meal while listening to testimony from speakers in both English and Spanish.
One speaker, 50 year-old Cassandra Jefferson, said the people of New Season had changed her life.
“I can’t believe how many people came. It’s awesome that they opened up their doors to a person like me,” said Jefferson, who used to live on the streets but is currently living in a shelter that New Season helped her get into. “It doesn’t take long for God to come and open up doors.”
According to Maribel Beltrenz, outreach director for New Season, opening doors is the whole point. “It doesn’t matter if five, 20 or 100 people come through that door. Whoever shows up is who was meant to be served, and what matters is that people coming are getting what they need–food, love and honesty,” she said. “Then maybe we can draw them to the Lord too,” Beltrenz added.
The volunteers brushed praise for their good works aside. Asked why he does it, LeBlanc countered with another question: “Why don’t more people do this? It’s not rocket science, but it really is a big deal. All we do is feed folks. The satisfaction you get from personally knowing you’ve made a difference ought to be enough.”
Looking ahead, Mercy Chefs hopes to begin a training mission to teach food safety, sanitation and basic menu preparation to the leaders of churches around the country, making communities more prepared if there is a disaster in their area, while simultaneously creating a network of trained volunteers to call upon when they are needed for disasters elsewhere.
LeBlanc claims to be inspired by the Green Beret’s “force multiplier” concept. “They say ‘Twelve Green Berets, the right equipment and 500 locals is a formidable army,’” quotes Leblanc. “I say, one mobile kitchen, a trained team leader and a local volunteer team is a formidable army as well.”
As the meal concluded, Rachel Ortiz, director of partnerships for New Season, went to each table to ask every guest what they needed the most. She says New Season is going to do its best to fill those needs in time for Christmas.
“Most importantly,” said Ortiz, “next year they all know that there is somewhere for them to go.
As for Cassandra Jefferson, tears of joy filled her eyes as she said: “Next year I’m going to bring my grand kids!”
“Most importantly,” said Ortiz, “next year they all know that there is somewhere for them to go.
As for Cassandra Jefferson, tears of joy filled her eyes as she said: “Next year I’m going to bring my grand kids!”