Terrebonne Churches United Food Bank Offers Multiple Programs to Battle the Region’s Fight on Hunger

Lawrence DeHart, Director of Terrebonne Churches United Food Bank (TCU Food Bank), teared up as he shared the experiences and issues of hunger the organization is helping to battle. While the food bank does offer a mass distribution of food once a month, there are various other programs they provide.

The 2,800-square-foot main facility is located at 922 Sunset Avenue in Houma. It consists of office space, a walk-in cooler, walk-in freezer, and an immense area for warehouse use. The facility has backup generators, cell service capabilities that can transfer to a wifi hotspot, and many other features that allow the organization to be fully functional through the worst of storms. They partner with Convoy of Hope which has helped the food bank tremendously, enabling them to expand their programs and community outreach.

The food bank offers a mass distribution drive-through once a month. They prepare a few boxes for the public to be able to take home that consist of items such as cooking oil, spaghetti sauce, pasta, rice, cereal, chili, canned vegetables, and so on. Each box is valued at about $250. They also have snack boxes that contain items such as peanut butter and crackers. Other than the Sunset Avenue location, they also have locations in Dulac and at both Fletcher Technical Community College campuses. DeHart said, “We do have our mass distribution, which we are most known for, but we are MUCH more than that.”

The organization has a heart for the area’s homeless and has a program where they provide “Homeless Boxes.” The boxes are worth about $60 and include 10 meals of non-perishable food items that are designed to last the individual 7 days of meals. “We put items such as granola bars and items that can be quickly eaten, because the first thing you’ll see when they get these boxes, is they shove food in their mouth because they’re so hungry,” DeHart said as he said hi to a volunteer packing boxes. 

TCU Food Bank also partners with the parish and Fletcher to offer the area’s homeless a full-circle of opportunities. “When they come to us homeless, we work with Terrebonne Parish, and they can put someone up for long-term housing. Once they’re in that system, we then work with Fletcher Technical Community College which has these certification programs that include 8 different programs, such as wire linemen. What I love about this is now we’re not just feeding them, but getting them off the streets, and giving them an opportunity to be productive and grow,” DeHart said. 

The organization also partners with the parish’s head-start program that serves kids with disadvantages. The food bank provides vouchers for 200 families in the program until they can go through the organization’s food distribution program. “That’s 200 new families who are now getting food on a regular basis. This is why we do what we do,” DeHart said. He explained the heart behind the children outreach programs and shared about a partnership with b1BANK for a backpack program for disadvantaged children. Backpacks are packed with school supplies, and the food bank provides vouchers to help with the food insecure population. This helps with the area’s children who, while they are provided with two meals at school, would be able to have ample food at home too.

When Father Craig of St. Matthews Episcopal Church in Houma approached DeHart about a summer feeding program, he said “Yeah, sure! Maybe next summer.” Then Father Craig said, “No, we need one in 30 days.” They jumped into action for the 5-week camp where they fed 100 kids plus staff. 

“The children in the area also understood, if they walked into our camp hungry, they got food,” DeHart said while he went on to say they had at least 16 children daily coming to get a hot lunch. “We did so with the understanding that if any kid walked in and said that I’m hungry we are going to feed them. And so we averaged 16 kids a day between both camps that would literally walk in and say, ‘can I have food?’ And it’s just such an absolutely amazing program. We couldn’t do it last year because of COVID. He came to me recently and said, ‘Okay, we’re going to do it again.” 

DeHart bonded with one of the kids through this program. He reminisced with a smile on his face about a particular conversation, “The little gentleman looked up at me and asked ‘are you Santa Claus?’ I was a little confused, because yeah I might have the hair, but I asked him why he thought that, and he responded, ‘because only good things come from Santa Claus.’ So at that point, I knew that this was a program that needed to continue.”

Another ongoing program the organization provides is hurricane and emergency response. When Hurricane Zeta hit on a Wednesday night, the organization was still at the old facility. The crew went out the next day and literally had to push water out as they knew they had to quickly respond to the area’s needs. They packed as many boxes as they could get done, and on Friday, they did a distribution where they fed over 1,000 people. Convoy of Hope then sent an eighteen-wheeler truck filled with items that were more than the facility could hold. “We literally had to put stuff in their houses and everything; we were shoving pallets in to the facility so we can roll down the door because it was so much that they gave,” DeHart remembered. 

This allowed the food bank to offer the area more mass distribution the following week where they fed another thousand people. They also had other charitable organizations who came to the facility to prepare meals. They helped other churches and organizations when they ran out of resources and food. DeHart said, “See, primarily what we do, it’s not just for the poor, the indigent is for a hand up, not a handout.”

Like many, COVID threw the food bank many curveballs — one being a population that could not necessarily leave their house during quarantine to go to the grocery store or to go to the food bank to receive food. “We don’t have the resources to really offer delivery services, but we’re not a part-time food bank. We’re here every day, and we do what we can. What we would do is if there was a family shut in that had no way to get food, we would step up to deliver their needs,” DeHart said. 

DeHart went on to tell a story of a couple in the Bourg area. It was a Friday afternoon after a long week, and he remembered being exhausted, but he got a call about an older couple in Bourg where the wife was COVID positive, and the husband was also in quarantine. DeHart described the look on the gentleman’s face when he pulled up and started unloaded boxes, upon boxes, of food items. The gentleman noted, “You know, it’s just the two of us,” and DeHart responded, ”Yes sir, but this is everything you get.” After unloading the boxes, DeHart said the man kindly got out his wallet and tried to pay while saying, “We’ve been married for 50 years, and I’ve never not been able to provide or take care of her. My two kids live out of state, and my neighbors are scared to come by because she’s COVID positive. And they tell me I can’t go into a grocery store. We don’t have much; we just got caught with not a lot of food in the house.” The gentlemen started crying when DeHart gently declined the man’s payment, “No, sir, this is what we do. We take care of our own.” 

DeHart had a twinkle in his eye as he concluded with, “So this is what we do. This is what we are. We try. We don’t like to let anybody walk away.” 

Terrebonne Churches United Food Bank is constantly looking for volunteers and donations. For more information, visit https://tcufoodbank.org/ or call (985) 851-5523.

By Heidi Guidry