Second Harvest receives $25 million donation just when it is needed most

Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana is so honored and humbled to be one of the organizations that Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott announced she was making investments in this week. 


“Second Harvest Food Bank is able to work across South Louisiana to alleviate hunger and help build thriving communities because of the tens of thousands of community partners, donors and volunteers who donate their food, funds and time to our mission,” said Natalie Jayroe, president and CEO of Second Harvest. “MacKenzie Scott’s investment in our mission to fight hunger is a testament to the importance and efficacy of the work we do together as a community.”


“This gift will leverage and amplify every contribution made by every individual, organization, and foundation that helps us end hunger in South Louisiana,” she continued, “We are so proud that our community’s work has been chosen as worthy of this support and recognition.”

Why Scott picked Second Harvest
In a blog post, MacKenzie talked about how her team chose organizations like Second Harvest:

“They took a data-driven approach to identifying organizations with strong leadership teams and results, with special attention to those operating in communities facing high projected food insecurity, high measures of racial inequity, high local poverty rates, and low access to philanthropic capital.”

Second Harvest Food Bank Board Chair Robert Marks echoed the major impact this gift will have on our communities. “This gift comes as we prepare to celebrate our fourth decade of serving South Louisiana. Since our founding in 1982 by Archbishop Hannan with faith and community leaders, Second Harvest has grown from humble roots to serving hundreds of thousands of people in need every month. With this donation, we will continue to strive towards our founders’ vision of a hunger-free South Louisiana.”


“We are quickly convening our board of directors, leadership team, and other stakeholders,” Marks said. “We are all working hard to plan how this transformative gift will achieve its restricted purpose to ensure that Second Harvest reaches its long-term strategic goals, while ensuring our sustainability to serve South Louisiana into the future.”

This announcement comes as South Louisiana is in the midst of an unprecedented hunger crisis. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, our 23-parish service area had a 65 million “meal gap” after South Louisianans did all they could to feed their families. 

One out of five Louisianans were not sure where their next meal was coming from. Second Harvest had been able to make up 35 million of those meals annually, representing $112 million worth of food.  To fill the remaining gap, we have worked every day to find another 30 million meals, or $96 million worth of food.

With COVID, and Hurricanes Laura, Delta and Zeta, now one in four Louisianans are food insecure.  With our partners, Second Harvest is caring for more than half a million of our neighbors, and our distribution of food has nearly doubled in the last ten months. The cruelest impacts have been felt by children, senior citizens, and those least able to bear the burden of this emergency.

A record number of people are visiting a food bank for the first very time in their lives. At a distribution Dec. 17 at Zephrys Field in Metairie, more than 1,500 cars were in line to receive food and a free tree from Lowe's and the Brees Dream Foundation. New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond visited before the distribution opened at 7 a.m. to bless the food and trees with holy water.

This gift will help Second Harvest better meet these challenges now and in the future.  “We could not be more grateful,” concluded Jayroe.

For more information about Second Harvest, please visit no-hunger.org

Second Harvest Food Bank is an affiliated ministry of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans, a member of Feeding America, and a United Way Partner Agency. We lead the fight against hunger and building food security in South Louisiana by providing food access, advocacy, education and disaster response.  Second Harvest provides food to more than 700  partners and programs across 23 parishes, from the Mississippi border to the Texas state line. Together, we make up the largest charitable anti-hunger network in the state. With our community’s help, we can make food security a reality for every household in South Louisiana. 
 
To join us in the fight to end hunger, please visit www.no-hunger.org. Follow us on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/2ndHarvestGNOA; fan us on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/2ndHarvestGNOA or Instagram at @2ndHarvestGNOA.