FA: What We Do

IN A BUSINESS SENSE, all food banks are distribution systems. Food banks are analogous to a grocery chain. A large grocery chain would receive food from thoughout the nation, warehouse that food, distribute the food to individual stores, and then sell the food to consumers. Our food bank receives food from throughout the nation, warehouses that food, distributes the food to charitable social agencies throughout the twelve parishes of Northeast Louisiana, and those agencies feed the needy. The distribution system is the core function of any true food bank.

We distribute over 3,000,000 pounds of food annually through approximately 90 charitable agencies throughout Northeast Louisiana. The 2010 Feeding America National Hunger study indicates that the Feeding America system served by the Food Bank of Northeast Louisiana provides emergency food for an estimated 39,000 different people annually and about 7,400 different people receive emergency food assistance in any given week including more than 16,000 children.

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In addition to providing the distribution system, our food bank has established two programs that address the needs of our most vulnerable population: the children and the elderly. Our Adopt-A-Senior Program provides a monthly food box to over 1,400 seniors living below the poverty level throughout Northeast Louisiana and our BackPack Program currently provides six nutritionally balanced meals to over 300 children from six public schools who face chronic hunger over the weekends during the school year.

The vast majority of the people that receive food that comes through our food bank do not know that it came from here. They probably do not even know that there is a food bank in the area. However, they do know that there is someone somewhere who cares about them and does not want them to go hungry. They do know that they are important and their life does have value.