INDIANAPOLIS (WTHR) - Statistics show a spike in charitable donations and people volunteering for all kinds of good causes during the holiday season. However, there are organizations doing great work every day, and changing thousands of lives along the way.
Second Helpings is one of those places in Indianapolis that's impacting kids and adults who may not know where their next meal is coming from, and others who need a helping hand. There are many missions at Second Helpings: food rescue, culinary training and hunger relief. They all go hand in hand to help, and they thrive on their more than 700 volunteers.
Chef Liz Gimenez, the Director of Hunger Relief for Second Helpings, said she prepares menus using food donations from grocers like Kroger, which staff and volunteers from Second Helpings help pick up.
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"Each time we make a batch of food, that batch of food usually feeds about 600 people," Gimenez said. "Our volunteers are helping us remove the fat, keep the bones for stock, and they're helping us dice it!”
When asked about what Second Helpings has meant to her as a chef, she said, "It really feels great to be able to make a nutritious meal out of food that is perceived as waste, but is actually perfectly fine!"
There’s also the culinary training, which is much more than it seems. That training is giving citizens a second chance. Students from different backgrounds get back on their feet from a seven-week course, taught by Chef Vincent Kinkade.
"We help place them in jobs in the hospitality field," Kinkade said. "So employment is the goal. We also help them write a resume. We do some team building skills."
Anita Cleveland, a second-time student at Second Helpings, is in the middle of her seven week course, and said she's glad she came back "very, very, very thankful."
"My mother died two years ago on Veterans Day and I thought it (Veterans Day) was gonna kind of be hard, but it really wasn't. It's (Second Helpings) been really helpful, so I'm very, very thankful for that, and I know she's probably proud of me right about now."
