Your Support Means More than Just a Box of Food for Amanda and Her Family

Our Daily Bread in Hammond is a community food pantry and soup kitchen supported by your donations to Second Harvest. Amanda started coming here about a year ago following a breakup with her husband. One of the pantry’s staff told us, “She at first was sad and discouraged. She said she was so depressed at the thought of raising her kids on her own. But on her return visits, she told us how much visiting our pantry brightened her day.”

The staff and volunteers of Our Daily Bread supplied Amanda with food, but also provided counseling to help with her family problems. Thanks to their help, Amanda and her husband have worked things out and they recently remarried.

“She came in as a depressed single mother, and now she’s an empowered wife and mom who feels that her life has been transformed,” the volunteer said. “The hope of getting the food she needed every month and the positive relationships
we had with her created thankfulness in her day.”

Every month, Second Harvest delivers more than 70,000 pounds of food to Our Daily Bread’s pantry in Tangipahoa Parish. In addition to serving local Hammond residents four days a week, this pantry also in turn provides food to more than two dozen smaller pantries throughout the parish.

John Hair, the pantry’s Director, said their mission goes beyond putting food on tables. “It’s our mission to help with their life problems, if we can, that bring them to our food pantry. And it’s important that our staff and volunteers understand what these neighbors are going through.”