July marks the beginning of a new fiscal year (FY) at Second Helpings, and provides a chance to look back at all that our volunteers, donors, and partners made possible over the last twelve months.

While every year is full of inspiring stories and more room to grow, the last year has been one that will stand out in our organizational history, as volunteers, donors, and partners rose together to meet the immense challenges facing our community.

Take a look back over the last year with us through the three programs we operate to transform lives through the power of food.

Second Helpings received food donations from across our community, including 1,000+ pounds of pasta from Fazoli’s in June.

Food Rescue

This past year, Second Helpings rescued 3,591,165 pounds of food from donors across the community. This marks the most food the organization has ever rescued in one year – and is the third record-breaking year in a row. In FY 2020, we rescued 2,991,428 pounds of food, and in FY 2019, we rescued 2,553, 378 pounds.

The amount of food rescued last year accounts for nearly 9% of the total food we’ve rescued since our founding in 1998 – over 40 million pounds in total.

Hunger Relief

This year, Second Helpings, with our satellite kitchen partners, prepared 1,818,427 meals for more than 100 local social service agency partners. Our volunteers and staff prepared more meals than we previously would have thought possible, and this was another third record-breaking year in a row. In FY 2020, we prepared 1,485,577 meals, and in FY 2019, we prepared 1,077,959 meals.

Volunteers continued to package meals in grab-and-go containers throughout this year.

That’s an average of more than 5,000 meals per day, and accounts for 11% of our total number of meals – more than 16 million. Did you miss our 15 millionth meal last fall? Read more here.

Second Helpings also redirected 2,347,808 pounds of food product. At “redirect sessions,” partner agencies are invited to visit Second Helpings’ warehouse to look through our excess food donations – and distribute any of that available food back to those they serve. This program prevents additional food from going to waste.

Pre-pandemic, these sessions were offered weekly – through this year, these opportunities occurred every day. In total, Second Helpings has redirected more than 35 million pounds.

Culinary Job Training

In the last fiscal year, 23 adults graduated from the Culinary Job Training program. This program faced many challenges to operate safely amidst COVID-19 guidelines.

CJT Class 130 was the first to graduate with the program’s new model.

The program was suspended for five months at the beginning of the pandemic, and later returned with modifications including smaller class sizes to accommodate social distancing and technology support to facilitate remote learning. Classes are now back to starting every month.

Looking forward

As Second Helpings begins a new year and looks ahead, volunteer recruitment continues to be a major focus, as the number of volunteer hours served was about 40% less than the previous year. The most impactful way to support this mission is to sign up, or invite someone, to volunteer.

Thank you for rising to the challenge to feed Indy this year and beyond.