Meal assistance program looks to help people falling through the cracks

NEW ORLEANS — At the corner of Burgundy and St. Peter in the French Quarter, there’s an intersection of gratitude and blessings.  For Cindy Cochran, it’s one less thing to stress about since being out of a job.

“Particularly here in this neighborhood, almost all of us are in the service industry and almost all of us lost our jobs,” Cochran said.

Cochran was a tour guide before coronavirus shut the industry down. Now, she’s thankful for causes like the Crescent City Meal Assistant Program, which is serving meals by the thousands.  

“We didn’t really know how we were going to do it, but we knew that we could get it done,” said Sarah Manowitz, co-founder of the program.

Manowitz, along with Reed Wendorf, started distribution April 4, originally for service industry workers and the LGBTQ community.  

“Reed and I both knew that there was going to be substantial need in our community for meal assistance and food security,” Manowitz said.

That need grew every day and quickly. Now they’re serving up to 28,000 meals a week to anyone in need.

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“We started out just doing Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday but we kind of overwhelmed the French Quarter block,” Wendorf said.

Thanks to local partnerships and a lot of volunteers, distribution now happens Monday through Saturday.

“What’s nice about our effort is that it is community run,” Wendorf said.

Bags are packed with meals, recipients like Cochran are given a pickup day and a community is once again connected through food.

“I’ve gone to a couple of them. They give you quite a lot, so it usually holds me for a week,” Cochran said.

While the menu changes through the week, New Orleanians helping each other in a time of need, never will.

For information about the Crescent City Meal Assistance Program and how to sign up, check out the program’s website.

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