Here's Jennifer Vigran helping with a Culinary Job Training line cooking exercise during her time as CEO. My first volunteer shift at Second Helpings was in a small former cafeteria and dining room at the old RCA plant on LaSalle Street. With a handful of staff, 2 [...]
Earlier this summer, when we saw positivity rates dropping in Marion County, we eased up somewhat on Second Helpings’ masking policy. In the past two weeks, we have seen the positivity rates rise in Marion County to levels not seen since early May and the number of cases has [...]
June 8, 2021 To our Second Helpings Staff and Volunteers, On June 7th, Marion County issued a new public health order about the use of masks and other COVID-19 prevention measures. Much has changed in our community over recent months. Vaccines are now widely available and positivity rates in Marion County are currently 4.1% compared to 16.8% [...]
CEO Jennifer Vigran speaks to Second Helpings staff and volunteers on March 18, the one-year anniversary of our grab-and-go meals, a symbol of our COVID response. When schools in Marion County closed in March last year, the impact on Second Helpings was dramatic and instantaneous. While the [...]
Throughout our organization’s history, the restaurant industry has been critical to Second Helpings’ impact in the community. In fact, that’s where we began. Our three founders were all Chefs, and created Second Helpings to address problems they identified in the industry and community – food waste, hunger, job training, [...]
As we’ve stopped over recent days to mourn the appalling death of George Floyd and too many others, to listen, and to question the institutional injustices against people of color, we are reminded that the inequities in our society are pervasive. Food insecurity, the lack of access to enough [...]
“Normally” Second Helpings provides meals to community organizations – churches, shelters, community centers, after-school programs and many others share Second Helpings meals with their neighbors, clients and students. That’s happening during the coronavirus outbreak as well, but something kept haunting us – who was getting left behind during this [...]
In 2008, I was a new Second Helpings Board member. At my first board retreat we recognized that there was something wrong with a hunger relief system where the organizations responsible for the work didn’t know, understand, or talk to each other. From those discussions arose what would eventually [...]
For two decades, the Sahm family and their restaurants have supported Second Helpings. Yesterday, opened a new chapter in that relationship. It started with an email from Eddie Sahm at 2:07 Sunday morning. By Friday, Sahm’s Cafeteria in the OneAmerica tower had become Second Helpings’ first satellite kitchen, delivering [...]
Last Thursday was a day most of us will likely never forget. While Second Helpings had planned for weeks for the possibility of a COVID-19 outbreak, like everyone else in our society, even with plans in place, we were in untested waters. For more than two decades our charitable [...]