Mercy Chefs: On The Ground In Texas
Twelve years ago I wrote a column for The Virginian-Pilot on a little-known charity called Mercy Chefs based in Portsmouth that was preparing delicious meals for those left homeless by a killer tornado in Oklahoma.
Mercy Chefs was founded by Chef Gary LeBlanc and his wife, Ann in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina that devastated Gary’s hometown of New Orleans in 2005.
Well, the non-profit Mercy Chefs continued to grow and feed meals to those in sudden need. According to the Mercy Chefs website, the non-profit has served 27 million chef-prepared, restaurant-quality meals to those in need around the globe.
What a wonderful organization.
Naturally, they’re already on the ground in Hunt, Texas, preparing delectable meals for hungry first responders, victims and volunteers who are tirelessly working and praying for miracles after the flash flood that wiped out a Christian girls camp on the banks of the Guadalupe River.
Feeling helpless about the tragedy unfolding in Texas? Me too. So I went to Mercy Chef’s DONATION site to join with others who want to do SOMETHING to ease the heartbreak of the parents who lost their little girls this weekend.
Please join me in supporting this fabulous local charity that does such unique and amazing work.
Instead of calling Chef LeBlanc and bothering him while he’s comforting the inconsolable in Texas, I thought I’d reprint the column I wrote in 2013.
Twelve years ago I wrote that I’d take a hurricane any day over a tornado. Today I can truthfully say I’d also take a hurricane over a flash flood.
Thank God for Mercy Chefs and all the volunteers who are comforting the victims of that deadly flood.
Here is the 2013 Virginian-Pilot column:
I’ll take a hurricane any day.
At least we get ample warning with hurricanes. We watch them form off the coast of Africa and track their leisurely trip toward the Caribbean. By the time a hurricane churns up the East Coast, we know it by name and have a good idea of its strength and general direction.
We can evacuate. Or stay and take precautions to minimize damage.
Tornadoes, on the other hand, appear suddenly, causing people to dive into their cellars, underground bunkers or interior rooms. Minutes later, the whirling vortex is on top of them, buzz-sawing through houses, churches and schools, leaving incredible devastation. And death.
According to Reuters, the residents of Moore, Okla., had a 16-minute warning that a tornado was about to hit Monday.
Sixteen minutes.
Yet apparently that was better than the eight- to 10-minute notice tornado alley usually gets.
This wasn’t just any tornado. It was a monster with winds that might have been as high as 200 mph. Worse, it reportedly stayed on the ground for an agonizing 40 minutes.
Late Tuesday, officials put the death toll at 24.
There’s something about watching this sort of horror that makes Americans reach for their checkbooks. And sometimes their car keys.
We don’t want to just gape at the disaster. We want to help.
One Portsmouth resident was doing just that. By Tuesday evening, Gary LeBlanc, founder of Mercy Chefs, was reportedly on the ground in Oklahoma – with a dying cellphone battery – helping to serve hot food.
Mercy Chefs is a small charity that does impressive work with two mobile kitchens, a network of skilled chefs and volunteers.
The kitchen that’s known as Mercy 1 arrived in Norman, Okla., near Moore shortly after the tornado hit. The truck is based in Texas and recently was deployed to the town of West, where volunteers spent about two weeks feeding the survivors of the fertilizer plant explosion.
“We position the kitchen in Texas so we can be within hours of any tornado,” explained Debbie Lowe, a chef who works with LeBlanc.
I caught up with her at a Chicago airport, where she was trying to catch a flight to Oklahoma.
According to a Pilot story from 2008, LeBlanc, a Louisiana native, volunteered with a relief agency in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
Less than a year later, he founded Mercy Chefs in Portsmouth with a mission to provide professionally prepared hot meals to survivors of catastrophes. Since then, Mercy Chefs has fed hungry people from Haiti to Texas to New York City.
The motto of the charity is simple: “Go and Feed People.”
Lots of organizations do that, of course. But Mercy Chefs serves carefully prepared local cuisine, with a flair.
“We try to serve people food they like, comfort food,” Lowe told me. “For instance, in Louisiana, we’ve served lots of jambalaya and shrimp gumbo.
“In Alabama a couple of years ago, we served roast beef, green beans and blueberry cobbler.
“We serve complete meals, with meat, vegetables, a starch and always a dessert.
“Many times, survivors of disasters get snacks and cold food. We try to give them a hot meal so they can sit down at a table with their families and eat.”
Mercy Chefs is a Christian charity, but spokeswoman Lane Griffin told me Tuesday that their volunteers don’t evangelize.
They let their actions – and the food – do the talking.
