Organization feeds people impacted by Francine

AccuWeather spoke with Mercy Chefs Founder Gary LeBlanc on how they're helping those in Louisiana who have been impacted by Francine.

Transcript

00:00and we have an important interview coming up yeah disaster release organization mercy chefs

00:05is in homa louisiana in the wake of hurricane francine serving chef prepared meals to residents

00:12volunteers and first responders coping with the storm's aftermath founder gary levon a louisiana

00:19native it's a bit of a bittersweet trip the non-profit was started in the aftermath of

00:24hurricane katrina in 2006 and gary we welcome you to our morning show and talk about a feel

00:30good friday story we appreciate everything you're doing tell us about what you're seeing in homa and

00:35what mercy chefs is doing to help people as they recover from francine well on the top end we're

00:42really excited the damage wasn't worse down in homa and all through south louisiana we've seen

00:48much worse damage down there but at the same time a big part of population is still without power

00:55there were a lot of homes that were flooded a lot of the fishing and maritime industries they had a

01:00lot of boats that took water or sank and so folks are still struggling to get through we met some

01:06people that still have blue tarps on their homes from three years ago in hurricane ida and it just

01:12seems like they can't quite get back without another storm hitting the folks there in south

01:17louisiana that's a really important perspective that you share with us how does mercy chefs

01:22deploy to disasters and then how long will you plan to stay well mercy chefs has six mobile

01:28kitchens based around the country so we can get to a disaster very quickly so our teams were on

01:35site actually here two days ahead of time pre-stage we're buying groceries we're getting everything

01:41set we were finding locations and so as soon as the storm passed we were able to move right in

01:47and get meals out yesterday to the people there in alma and our model on how long we'll stay is

01:53we're going to stay as long as there is a need for us but we view ourselves as a sort of bridge

02:00from the storm back to normalcy so we'll watch for restaurants getting open power being back on

02:06grocery stores being at open and we'll take our cues from that on when we need to get out of town

02:13all right so you're a louisiana native and started mercy chefs after katrina 18 years ago

02:18what does it mean to be back where it all started and do you have any

02:23areas that you plan to deploy to next we um we we always love to be back in new orleans in south

02:32louisiana i mean it is home everybody talks like me there are a lot of last names like mine

02:38the food is amazing down here in south louisiana and and it does bring back so many memories to

02:45be back here in the city it's where i spent 20 years in the industry and so the places i used

02:50to work um just so many incredible memories but to see them constantly hit by storms is such a sad

02:58place in my heart in terms of where we're going to go next of course we're watching the east coast

03:03our headquarters is in portsmouth brazil and virginia so our team there is already taking

03:09precautions and preparations to be ready for what may come watching all the long-range forecast

03:16but daily mercy chefs is around the country in our community kitchens taking care of dallas and

03:22nashville richmond virginia we're also with our family grocery box programs and our global

03:28division serving over a hundred thousand meals a month around the world so we're we're constantly

03:35busy but constantly monitoring the disasters and the storms that that are always on the horizon it

03:41seems gary leblanc founder of mercy chefs thanks again so much for joining us on accurate early

03:47we hate to see these disasters but we do love to hear stories just like yours about how you're

03:51helping people well thank you guys so much the coverage keeps so many people safe we appreciate

03:58you thank you so much